Monster
by Selective scifi junkie
Summary: When Tesla and Druitt find the body of a man, mutilated by something without a name, the Sanctuary is their first port of call. Magnus cannot resist the challenge to her skills and intellect. Full summary, spoiler details,etc. at top of fic.
1. Primo

**Summary: **When Tesla and Druitt find the body of a man, mutilated by something without a name, the Sanctuary is their first port of call. Magnus cannot resist the challenge to her skills and intellect, but it isn't long before she realises that this isn't just an injured predator seeking easy prey.

**Set: **Between Haunted and Kali.

**Spoilers: `**Sanctuary for all` (obviously), maybe `Kush`, definitely `The Five`, just possibly `Requiem`, `Revelations` (both), `End of Nights` (both), `Eulogy`, `Sleepers` and `Haunted`.

**Genres: ** Several. These include: Drama, Angst, bits of Adventure, Hurt/Comfort, Suspense and Mystery.

**Rating: **Fairly strong T for bloody violence, mostly you only see its affects, not it being inflicted. As an episode, a 15, on a par with Nubbins or the autopsy scene in Requiem.

**Disclaimer: **This world belongs to the genii Amanda Tapping, Martin Wood and Damian Kindler. If I did own this, Monster would be cannon.

**My first Sanctuary fic and my third fic overall.**

Monster

"Ready?"

"Ready." Henry lifted the lid off the crate.

"Woah!" All four of them leapt back, Will shouted, as the abnormal shot out like a bullet. Magnus glimpsed black fur, long claws, membrane wings as the terrified creature flew towards the robotic assist.

"Some critters just don't know when to quit." Kate snarled, training her stunner on the abnormal.

"They're incredibly shy." Magnus replied, staring after it. "Being sedated and shut in a crate for seven hours, then waking up in a completely different habitat is probably her personal hell."

"And having her home flattened for a power plant isn't?" Will put in.

"Geez, Kate, no!" Henry yelled as Kate's hand tensed to fire. "Not while it's on the assist!"

"Why not?"

"Because you'll screw up the calibration and I'll have to spend eight hours un-screwing it."

"How do I get it then?"

"Wait a second." Magnus walked across to the robotic assist's controls and tapped the on switch. She'd found herself using the thing less since it had tried to kill them, though she knew it hadn't actually been the robotic assist. As the metal hummed into life, the abnormal swooped down with a high, chattering shriek of terror.

Kate fired. The abnormal crashed to the floor. Magnus approached her slowly. She was motionless. Her black furred body, about the size of a cat's was crushing her delicate wings, the wings that told what she should have been. A bat. A harmless little bat. For some reason, she'd grown to about ten times her natural size. Magnus ran a hand over the wings. They looked and felt undamaged.

"Will, Kate, get her into her accommodation. She's not obviously injured. Henry, check no one has tried to contact us in the last twenty-four hours, and that we haven't got any uninvited guests."

Magnus got up as Will and Kate approached the abnormal. She pitied her. Her home was days from destruction, she'd just been subdued and taken away by strangers. She'd wake up terrified.

"Doc, you'd better see this." Henry called from his lab. Magnus turned and walked quickly over. Henry gestured towards his screen. Two men were striding towards the gate, purpose in every movement. One, approximately her height with dark brown hair that stood almost upright on his head, pale skinned and dark eyed. The other, taller, more solid, bald, skin almost as pale as the other's, eyes paler. Nikola and John.

"This is real-time." Henry's voice jerked her back to reality. "The EM shield's up and he knows it. Do I let them in or not?" Nikola and John stopped in front of the gate. Magnus hesitated for a moment, then,

"Let them in. I'll go and see what they want."

It wouldn't be good news, she was fairly sure of that. Neither one of them would just drop by, let alone both at once, and she hadn't called them. No, something had defeated them, and something able to defeat both Nikola and John wouldn't be bad, it would be very bad.

Magnus met them just outside of the main building. Greetings were exchanged defensively on her part, uncomfortably on theirs.

"John, Nikola."

"Helen."

"Helen." There was a very tense pause.

"Do you mind my asking why you're here?" Magnus asked eventually. They glanced at each other.

"About a month ago," Nikola began, "I discovered that all Cabal workers were fitted with an internal satellite tracking device. I found a program to track them, but the signals are all scrambled after this long, it takes a while to decode them, not to mention, they're scattered all over the globe because they're scared as hell so I called in John to do the dirty work." Magnus gave John a reproving look. He gave her one of futility back, as if to say he couldn't help it. A part of her had dared to hope that, now he knew what he was up against, he might have been able to put up a better fight. Evidently, she'd been foolish to hope. She hadn't had any hope for him for over a century. She'd not done herself any good by starting to hope a month ago.

"Anyway," Nikola continued, "about three hours ago, we spotted a tracker on a tiny island off the cape of good hope and I mean tiny, 8" by 8. Well, John took us out there and what we found was a little, unpleasant. We couldn't think of a normal animal that could have done it, so we decided to call in a specialist." He gestured at Magnus.

"So we're looking at an animal kill?" There was another pause following her question.

"We think so." John spoke for the first time since greeting her. "But there are contrasting signs." Magnus took a moment to answer. Her mandate won over. Protect abnormal from humans and humans from abnormal. If an abnormal had killed a human, she needed to investigate.

"I'll get Will and Kate."

"Bring gloves, it got ugly." Nikola called after her as she walked away.

Magnus grasped John's wrist with her gloved hand. He would take her and Nikola first, then come back for Will and Kate. Fire.

Wind threw her dark hair around her face. The sound of the wind and the crashing waves was all around her. The smell of the sea filled her lungs, tainted by a smell she couldn't mistake. Blood.

Magnus surveyed the dark rock and what was on it silently. In over a century pursuing abnormals, she'd seen her fair share of blood, but the carnage before her left her momentarily speechless. She released John's wrist and just gazed at the body. She saw the bolt of fire behind her.

"Eurgh!" Will's exclamation of disgust was a fair summary.

The body was a young man's, head turned to his left, eyes closed, mouth half open. His head and neck were intact. It was only below the shoulders that the reason he was dead was plain to see. His chest was slick with blood, which grew thicker towards his abdomen. Dear God, his abdomen. Most of what looked like it's skin lay sloughed off to his right, exposing the injuries that had doubtless killed him. The first was a pool of thickening crimson at his solar plexus, the tip of a broken white rib protruding. The edges of the second wound were obscured by the loops of intestine, spilling onto the surrounding rock. What had done this?

"Shees." Kate murmured. "Whatever did this was really pissed off." Magnus drew a deep breath and crouched down beside the corpse's head, laying a hand to the blue-white skin.

"Cold, no rigor-mortis. He's not been dead that long."

"He wasn't cold when we found him, but rigor-mortis won't be far off." Nikola put in as Will joined Magnus.

"No head trauma or neck wounds, neck doesn't look broken either." She could hear in his voice how sickened he was. He was bearing it though. "The rest of him is so covered in... gore that looking for sense in it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"Except," Kate chipped in, "here." She gestured at one shoulder. "Claw marks. Four in a straight line, so not fangs or tusks. We're chasing something... bigger than a big dog, smaller than a bear." Kate stretched a gloved hand towards the wound, curling her fingers like talons and aligning each over a wound. It looked surprisingly natural.

"What we haven't told you," John began, "is that we tracked another one to Yellowstone. He was in a similar state to this one, but there was a bear sniffing at him, so I assumed..."

"Oh come on John," Nikola interjected, "that was obviously the bear's kill."

"Bears will eat carrion." John replied, determinedly calm, "I'm only saying it's possible."

"Next question," Magnus said, sitting back from the body, "why here? Why did he come here or why did the abnormal bring him?"

"Safe place to eat?" Kate suggested. "Bring the body here, then..."

"No." Will interrupted, "look at the blood, he struggled once he was here."

"And do you see any signs of his being eaten?" Magnus asked.

"Baldie and the vampire probably scared it off." Kate defended.

"And it didn't come back in three hours?" Will pressed.

"It must be very nervous."Magnus offered. Kate gestured at the eviscerated body and gave a derisive snort.

**Whodunnit, or whatdunnit? Any guesses about that or anything else welcome, as are reviews, be they positive or negative. Just, please justify your opinions.**


	2. Secundo

**I'm making an effort to do longer chapters. In my last fic, people got annoyed with me because they were too short. The fall out of that is that you get them less often.**

Monster

"It must be very nervous."Magnus offered. Kate gestured at the eviscerated body and gave a derisive snort.

"Unless this wasn't a kill for food." Will said slowly. He was right. Food wasn't the only reason for an animal to kill.

"Self-defence," She said, "or defence of its young, or territory."

"If it was territory, why are our guts still inside us?" Kate challenged.

"If it killed to defend itself," John started, "why did it kill so... badly. The most vulnerable part of a human is the neck."

"You should know." Nikola muttered. John ignored him.

"If it was killing for defence, it would have killed as quickly as possible. We know it has powerful claws, it would naturally strike for the neck. If it had absolutely no idea where to strike a human, it would probably have clawed..."

"The bit making a noise." Kate finished.

Magnus exhaled.

"What we need to do," She said, "is get this back to the Sanctuary and do a proper autopsy."

"Looking forward to it Will?" Kate asked innocently, clapping him on the shoulder.

"John do you think..."

"If the EM shield were down and I knew where I was going, definitely."

Preparing the body for autopsy was a nostalgic ritual for Magnus: cutting off the blood soaked clothing, searching for fur, saliva, any DNA traces (there were none), washing the blood from the skin, laying the body on the table, working at 30º F all the while. The basic procedure hadn't changed much in a century and a half. She'd done this with James too many times in '88, looking down at a woman's corpse, throat cut, abdomen mutilated, knowing who, suffering silently.

"Do we try to put the intestines back in or just cut them off?" Nikola's voice brought her sharply back to '09.

"They'll only get in the way." She replied. John stepped forward and began to tie off the loops. Magnus followed, severing them. "Starting at the head then." She said, severing the last one. All three of them crowded round.

"Here." Nikola indicated the back of the head. "Bruising. Probably done significantly before death, twenty minutes at least"

"None on the neck," John remarked,

"So it wasn't you." Nikola murmured,

"Doesn't feel broken either." John either didn't hear Nikola or pretended he hadn't. " No cuts, no abrasions, neck seems untouched."

"Which we've agreed is odd." Magnus said shortly. "Shoulders, these claw marks in several places."

"Lots of superficial chest wounds."

"And these... compressions on the arms, as if it put a lot of weight on them, to hold him down?" John suggested.

"While the abdominal wounds... Dear God." Magnus stopped as the ramifications of the indentations hit her. If the man had needed to be held down, he'd struggled as he'd been disembowelled. If he'd struggled, he'd been conscious. How he must have fought, screamed.

John slipped his hand into the lower wound, feeling its edges. Magnus gave it a withering look.

"Helen, Nikola." He froze, tense over the wound. Magnus stepped closer to him. He took her gloved, bloody hand in his and guided it into the abdominal cavity. For a moment, she groped blindly inside the dead flesh, then her fingers found the spine and followed it down.

She tensed like John had. Broken. The spine was broken, just below the rim of the pelvis. That explained his not being able to fight with his legs. It wouldn't have numbed the abdominal wounds though.

"Low spinal fracture." She said it aloud for Nikola's sake.

"Whatever did this was strong. He wasn't wet (except the blood) when we found him. He must have been flown in." Nikola was talking to himself as much as anyone else.

"I'd say this is the death wound." Magnus gestured at the solar plexus. "Covering skin torn away, ribs broken, diaphragm torn so the lungs collapsed, death."

Magnus stayed in the autopsy room for a long time after John and Nikola had left, returning to their private war against the Cabal, staring at the corpse. She was between trying to look at it as James would have and wishing James were there. This was exactly his speciality, there were so many unanswered questions. What had killed the man? Why so tortuously? Why at all? Had he really been flown to his grave? If so, alive or dead?

"Magnus?" The harsh voice behind her made her jump. "Everyone else is eating in ten minutes." He shuffled over and turned his eyes on the corpse. "Find anything?"

"Not since the others left." She sighed. "Have you seen this before?" He shook his head.

"Hoh. This isn't natural. If you want a human dead..." He tailed off, holding his hands about an inch away from her neck, as if to strangle her. "It didn't want him dead." He lowered his hands. "It wanted to see him die, slowly."

Three days later

Magnus walked quickly into her main lab. Kequanthrir. She'd heard the name. Where? Kequanthrir... Kequanthrir... A retrieval team had heard negotiations for the sale of one over the radio. Kequanthrir... Kequanthrir...

"Doc." Henry's voice from his lab. "Trouble."

"What?" She sped up as she entered.

"Who." He corrected, pointing at the surveillance feed for the main gate. John and Nikola. Henry's initial assessment had been fair.

"We've got another one." Nikola said as soon as Magnus reached the gate.

"Same modus operand?" She opened the gate.

"Looks like it." John said, stepping through the gate. "But it was pitch black where we found her. I couldn't swear to it." Magnus turned round wordlessly and set off to fetch Kate, Will, gloves and decent torches.

When she returned, Nikola gave her an appraising look and said,

"I'd forgotten it was possible, but you do look even more radiant with your hair up. Shows off your neck better."

"Only a vampire looks at a woman's neck first." Kate's sharp tongue dispersed the tension and saved Magnus from answering as Kate did an over-exaggerated mime-bite on thin air. Magnus stepped towards John, sensing his anger as he took hold of her and Nikola.

A soft breeze touched her skin. Moonlight lit the striking Karst scenery around her.

"Where are we?" It seemed the obvious question.

"Yorkshire moors, not far from Gordale scar." John released her and Nikola, then the flash of fire dimmed the moonlight momentarily.

"An English rose by English moonlight." Nikola was staring at her intently, "Perfection of a goddess." Could he never leave her alone? She glowered at him. She wasn't interested and he wasn't either. They both knew it. How she hated the mind games.

The flash of John, Will and Kate's arrival was welcome.

"Where's the body?" Will enquired nervously, looking around.

"In a cavern, about twenty feet below us." John replied.

"So why didn't we go straight there?" Kate asked.

"We thought you should probably see for yourselves where the creature decided not to kill." John answered, taking Magnus and Nikola by the wrists again. "I for one don't know how or why it took its victim into the cavern."

Darkness. John had meant it when he'd said pitch black. Magnus fumbled for the switch on her torch. It's solitary beam of light seemed blinding in the total darkness. Another flash of fire.

"Don't say a word." Magnus hissed at Nikola. She'd had just about enough. The only reason she hadn't told him so immediately after the English rose remark was that John had arrived. She hadn't wanted to let him know that Nikola had continued to approach her, hadn't wanted to risk his anger.

A flash of fire. Kate and Will turned on their torches.

"There." Kate's beam fell on a dark shape on the ground, glistening with darker liquid. It had run across the slimy stone, gathering in hollows, flowing into the limestone. Magnus approached carefully, sensing the others following her.

This one was smaller, a woman. Her short, red hair was matted with blood, making it redder. Her green-grey eyes were half closed. Magnus crouched down and touched her face. She wasn't yet cold. Dear God, had the abnormal left?

"She's still warm." Magnus got up quickly. "Did you search the cavern?"

"No." John replied "We couldn't for want of light."

**OK, that's all for now folks. Reviews very welcome, critical as you like.**


	3. Tertio

Monster

They searched. Magnus was caught between desire to find the creature and fear that one of them would meet death on its claws. After more than a quarter of an hour screening every corner behind the calcified columns, they returned to the body.

"Did anyone find a way in or out of this place?" Will asked, trying not to look at the mangled body.

"No." Magnus replied. "You said the other victim was flown to the island?"

"Nothing big enough to have this kind of claws could have gotten in here." Kate said resignedly. "This is hopeless."

"How did we get in here?" Magnus asked her.

"You think it can teleport?" Nikola asked her.

"It's a possibility; it would explain how it got from the Cape of Good Hope to here in three days." Magnus turned her eyes to the corpse. "Both shoulders dislocated."

"So it's got skill as well as strength." Kate summarised.

"This," Will said, "is looking more and more like deliberate torture than just a bad job." Magnus nodded mutely, eyes following the dislocated arm. It had been slashed; deep, long slashes, just evading the veins. The other arm was as bad. Bracing herself, Magnus slipped her torch beam onto the torso. Slashes marred every inch of skin. This woman hadn't been eviscerated; she'd been slashed so violently that Magnus could see the severed intestine through the slashes. She carried on downwards. The torch beam fell on the woman's legs.

"Dear God." Magnus breathed. Hers was by far the mildest exclamation. Will's face was ashen. Everyone had tensed. The flesh on the woman's knees had been ripped clean away, bearing ligament and bone completely. The muscle hung off in oozing clumps. "I haven't seen one this bad in a long while."

"Kelly." Nikola coughed indiscreetly.

"She was dead at the time." John's tone was defensive. Kelly had been his eighth. He'd more or less hacked her to pieces. Magnus doubted she'd ever forget the scene, the blood splattered across the walls and floor, the prostrate, faceless remains of the eviscerated woman on the bed. "She wouldn't have..."

"We need to take her back to the Sanctuary." Magnus said quickly. "I can't see properly in the torch light." She had to get the conversation away from Whitechapel, for her own sake as much as John's.

"Wait a second." Will spoke through his obvious nausea for the first time in minutes. "What's this?" His torch was trained on a pool of blood in a depression in the rock.

"It's where the blood went because things go down." Nikola said, as patronisingly as he could. "It's called gra-vi-ty."

"No, not that." Will ignored the vampire's taunt. "These." He gestured at several small spatters of blood around the pool. "Like something was in the blood, moving around."

"Like what?" Kate asked.

"I don't know, I... Maybe it drank some or... I don't know, rolled in it?"

"Most predators clean themselves off after a kill" Magnus commented.

"But we know it's not a predatory kill." Will countered. "I think we can be fairly sure now, it's not killing for defence or territory, it's killing for pleasure."

The autopsy had yielded nothing other than just how slowly the woman had died, purely from blood loss. Now, Magnus sat in the dining room with Will, Kate, Henry, John and Nikola, discussing what to do next.

"Assuming we're right," Will began, "and it doesn't really have a reason to kill, it's a menace to humans."

"Hold it." Nikola cut Will off. "You're generalising. As yet, it's only killed ex-cabal. Why do you think that is?"

"Revenge." Henry answered the rhetorical question. "They've abused a lot of abnormals, do you remember that fight club?"

"What happens when the Cabal are all dead?" Magnus shot at Nikola. "Can we be sure it'll stop? In any case, it could take ex-Cabal to include Kate. She did work for them, even if she's freelance. We can't bank on the abnormal making that definition. It could potentially condemn hundreds of innocent people by proxy. The best way to find out what its motives are is to capture it."

"If we hook up the software Tesla's been using to track the Cabal," Henry put in, "we should be able to tag most of them pretty quickly. If we just watch for any of them jumping from one place to another just like that, we'll be able to see when it takes one."

"Good." Magnus said. "How long will that take?"

"Uploading the software," Nikola replied, "Hours."

"Get started then." Magnus got up and went for the door.

"Where are you going?" Will called after her.

"To look for reference to an abnormal between the size of a large dog and a bear, with talons and possible the ability to teleport. I'd rather not go after it blind."

"Magnus!"

"Helen!" The voices of Henry and Nikola made Magnus, John and Will look up from their reading. In two days, they hadn't found a creature that fitted their criteria. Henry and Nikola burst into the room.

"We got one." Henry gasped. "Signal just jumped right from California to Russia. 'S the middle of the night there" Magnus jumped to her feet. So did Will and John.

"Find Bigfoot," She instructed Henry, "and set up the observation room in the SHU, and get the EM shield down. Will go and get Kate, and remind her to use the tranquilizers unless one of us is about to be killed. The gear is in the main lab. We meet there as soon as possible." She and everyone else near enough ran from the room. She could feel the adrenaline starting in her body, the excitement of the catch. They'd bring the abnormal back alive. She looked forward to it.

"Take Nikola and me first." She instructed John as Kate holstered her guns. "He's almost impossible to kill."

"And you of course don't want to miss a moment." He replied. He was right of course, she didn't. "I'm taking you about two hundred metres away from the signal." Magnus nodded and held out her hand to him. Nikola did the same.

Bright, clear moonlight. A man screaming in agony somewhere to her right, beyond a thicket. John vanished, then reappeared with Kate and Will. As one, they slunk to the thicket's edge at a half crouch. Then into it. Magnus felt the press of the branches, caress of leaves as if in a dream. The immediacy of her goal dimmed all else.

Into the open. Magnus swept the area with her eyes and weapon. The man's fading screams came from just beyond the top of a ridge ahead. It could well be too late for him. The smell of blood reached her on the wind. She was still afraid, of course she was, afraid that one of them would fall prey to the creature, but that fear was measured, held back by the weight of the pistol in her right hand, the faith in those around her and sheer curiosity. She had to know. The creature had evaded her knowledge. She had to know what it was. It could be totally unique; an entirely new species. She had to know.

They began to climb the ridge, guns raised, breathing fast. She could see the manic excitement on Kate's face, the concentration on Will's.

Suddenly she could see what lay beyond the ridge. As her mind touched on what her eyes saw, Magnus felt her body freeze. All she could do was rasp the creature's name from a dry mouth, dry throat. The name of the creature that crouched over its twitching, crying victim, silhouetted against the moon. The name of the creature that, when it saw, heard, or sensed them stood up and faced them squarely, blood dripping from talloned hands, lithe, feminine, beautiful body straightening. Long hair waving gently in the breeze.

"Ashley."

**Was that a surprise? If not, how did you guess? Misery Loves Sarah, you may now gloat, as may anyone else who got it. **

**Predictions? Do they catch her? What then?**


	4. Quatro

**OK, here you are, and it's about time by my standards. I thought I'd have this done two days ago**

Monster

Ashley's cold, red eyes flicked from John, to Will, to Magnus, without a fleeting glimpse of recognition. Magnus couldn't feel her body now; all she could be aware of was Ashley. Her child. Ashley who turned her eyes on Kate and drew back her lips, revealing vampire fangs. No. No, this wasn't... this couldn't... Ashley began to run.

Gunshot. Kate had fired.

"No!" Magnus shouted. She couldn't let Kate hurt her. Then Ashley wasn't on the ridge. She was six feet in front of Kate. Magnus saw the terror in Kate's eyes as she fired two more shots into Ashley. It didn't even slow her. Kate yelled as Ashley's talons tore into her. She fell Ashley bore down upon her. Dear God, what had they done? What had they done to her child?

Nikola grabbed Ashley's arm and pulled her upright. She was too fast for him. She slammed her other hand, talons first, into his diaphragm. Nikola gasped and fell beside Kate.

Fire flashed behind Ashley. John seized her advancing wrist, then both were gone.

There, back on the ridge. Ashley was just too strong. She threw John out over the steep slope. Magnus saw him fall and not rise. Ashley flashed back to Kate and Nikola. Gunshots close to. Will had fired.

"Will, no!" Magnus had to stop him from hurting Ashley. She staggered over to him, legs weak, and grabbed his arm, throwing his aim awry.

Nikola rose behind Ashley. His talons found her shoulders and tore.

"Nikola!" Magnus's cry was desperate. Ashley's blood oozed over Nikola's hands. The sight was killing her. Ashley, undaunted, reached back for Nikola's arms and threw him forwards over her head, to land flat on his back, unmoving.

Fire behind Ashley. John. Ashley turned to face him as he grabbed her wrist, still bleeding from Nikola's attack. Then both were gone.

"Never teach girls to fight." Nikola said, getting gingerly to his feet.

"Did he take her," Will asked, "or did she take him?"

"We won't know till one or both of them come back." Nikola replied.

"Kate." Will ran over to her. Magnus hear all this as if in a dream. She couldn't comprehend any of it. "Magnus, get over here. Kate's hurt." Will called.

Snapping out of her daze, Magnus walked over to them. Kate was lying on her back, eyes open, but dazed. Four red lines marked her shoulder, following down her chest, halting just above the line of her t-shirt. Not long, but deep.

"Will, pass me the plastic film." The feel of it under her hands as she stretched the perforated film over Kate's wounds was so real, so normal. It steadied her a little. "Nikola, go and see if there's any life left in..." She gestured at the ridge. "Dressing pad please, Will. It won't stick now I've got the film on. This will need stitches."

"Helen, I read physics, not medicine." Nikola protested.

"I'm only asking you to look for a pulse." Magnus laid the dressing pad carefully over Kate's wounds. "Kate? Kate, can you hear me?"

"Yeah." Her voice was faint. "Hurts"

"You'll be fine. You've come through much worse. Tape, Will."

"He's dead Helen." Nikola called from the ridge.

"Come back here then." She answered, fixing the last piece of Kate's dressing.

"So now I guess we wait." Will said.

"Obviously." Nikola returned. "We're stuck here until John decides to come back." Silence. What had just happened was beginning to sink in.

"Magnus?"

"I'm fine." Magnus snapped at Will, lying.

"I wasn't gonna say anything about that." He said quietly. She waited. "Magnus, she's alive."

"Yes, she is."

"So I guess there's hope."

Fire. Magnus, Will and Nikola jerked round, Will raising his pistol.

"What took you so long?" Nikola snapped at John as he approached. John didn't reply. He held his right arm away from his body and the left side of his head was bloody.

"John?" Magnus knew her voice betrayed her fear, but she had to know.

"We've got her." His voice was quiet, pained even by his standards. "She's at the Sanctuary."

He crouched down and took hold of Kate's arm firmly with his left. Will made to take John's right wrist. John drew back. Magnus could see the blood there now. "Above the elbow, if you don't mind."

"Sorry." In the moment before John vanished, Magnus registered the deep, red lines in the bloody side of his head. He was wounded.

Ashley. Ashley was the creature that had slaughtered at least three people, but she hadn't just killed them. The ravaged bodies flashed before Magnus's eyes. No. That wasn't... That couldn't have been Ashley? What had they done to her? What had they done to Ashley? What had they done to her daughter? What had they turned her child into?

Fire. John took her by the wrist with his left hand.

The main lab materialised around her.

"Please say I can put the shield up now!" Henry's frantic voice.

"Yes."

"Oh, thank God."

"Henry, that could kill her!" Magnus cried.

"No, Doc, no." He was white as a sheet, eyes terrified. "If you go from AC to DC, the pulse is constant so the refraction is constant. If it's AC, the pulse shifts so the atoms scatter, death. If it's DC, it's like a mirror. All the atoms end up exactly where they started. It's like AC is walking into a chainsaw turned on, with DC it's turned off." Henry finished. Magnus nodded mutely. Only one fact had reached her. The shield wouldn't kill Ashley.

"DC." Nikola scoffed "Useless. You lose half the power before it gets to whatever you're powering."

Kate. Kate was wounded. The wounds needed stitching.

"Will, help me get Kate to the infirmary."

Magnus grabbed a suture kit and a bottle of Codeine from the shelf. She drew and injected two ccs of the drug into Kate's vein.

"That should help the pain." She said as Will left.

"Swabs?" John asked, entering the room.

"Cupboard behind the door, third shelf up." She answered automatically. She threaded the needle and began to stitch. Through both edges, pull, tie, cut. Through both edges, pull, tie, cut. Through both edges, pull, tie, cut. The motions were instinctive now. It had been over a century since she'd made her first, tentative stitches under the eye of her father. Kate obligingly held still as Magnus stitched the four deep wounds, trying not to think about why they were there.

"Alright, that's it." Magnus said quietly as she tied off Kate's last stitch. "I'll have someone take you to your room. Magnus looked around and saw John standing by the sink, trying to swab his injured right arm with his left hand. "John, let me. You'll never manage that; you're right handed."

"It's fine Helen."

"No," She walked over. "let me." Evidently seeing sense, he proffered his forearm. The cuts weren't deep, but they stretched from his wrist almost to his elbow. No point stitching. She'd do better just to clean his wounds. She began to apply the mild antiseptic he'd been using.

"Do you think that's really any more effective than salt water?" He asked.

"Doesn't change concentration if you leave it in a warm place," Magnus replied, "and stings a lot less." John smiled fleetingly

"I can't argue with that." He was trying to keep her mind in the room. She knew why. She was glad of something to keep her hands and at least part of her mind occupied. She disposed of the bloody swabs and took out a bandage and a dressing. John seemed to have no more to say.

Magnus tended both his wounds as if in a trance. Ashley. John stayed still and quiet, accepting her treatment without comment. Ashley. John's head wound, though not deep, was reluctant to stop bleeding. Ashley. When it finally did, Magnus couldn't see any practical way to dress it. Ashley. Stitching wouldn't do any good either. Ashley. Unable to see any other course of action, Magnus ordered him to stay where he was for fifteen minutes and left the room. Ashley. She took Kate up to her room. Ashley. She set off for the main lab.

**Slightly shorter chapter four; I feel it's taken me long enough to type this. By the way, I'll probably be a bit slower from now on. How much slower, I don't know. You might get nothing for a fortnight. Sorry.**


	5. Quinto

**Just so you know, the fortnight is an absolute worst-case scenario. Enjoy.**

Monster

Nikola, Will, Bigfoot, Ashley. No. Magnus blinked hard. Nikola, Will, Bigfoot, Henry. How had she made that mistake?

"Where is she?" Magnus asked.

"Here." Henry stood up, indicating his computer screen. "CCTV, real-time."

Ashley stood at the front of her cage, testing it with her hands. Then, without warning, she twisted, lifting her right leg in a roundhouse kick. It had no effect on the glass. She staggered back, eyes flashing. Magnus's hands were shaking. What had they done to her? Ashley's eyes burned with rage. Fire. Magnus saw again the moment that had destroyed her, Ashley on the verge of tears, the flash of fire, the burning. But then there she was, exactly where she'd started. She looked around, uncomprehending. Fire again. Ashley's incomprehension. Fire. It was a long time before Ashley gave up and began to pace her cage, like a lioness in a zoo from Magnus's childhood.

"How many times has she tried this?" Magnus asked Henry.

"This is the first."

"What's she been doing?" It had been at least half an hour since she'd arrived. Henry paused before answering.

"When Druitt brought her back, they were both in a bad way. She was worse though. I don't know what he'd done to her, but she could barely stand up." Magnus felt renewed anger surge in her core. John had hurt her. He hadn't needed to. He just enjoyed causing pain. He had to be able to fight harder against it. Her fingers curled into fists as she got up, breathing hard.

"And it's taken her this long to recover?" No one answered her.

"Kate?" Bigfoot asked eventually, changing the subject.

"In her room. She'll be fine."

"Hoh." Bigfoot shuffled off.

"I'm gonna go see if I can get any sense out of Ashley." Will followed.

John walked in. Magnus's anger surged.

"What did you do to her?" She shouted, slamming an ineffectual fist into his shoulder.

"What I had to Helen." He spoke to silence her. "No more. What was the alternative? To leave her out there alone, or have her turn around and kill Miss Freelander and, most likely, anyone who got in her way." Magnus could see his point, but at the moment, she didn't want to. She wanted a tangible target for the rage inside her. She wanted to be able to hate him. She couldn't respond, so she didn't.

"Nikola," She turned away. "What do you make of all this?"

Will stood just out of site of Ashley's cage, drew a deep breath and released it. If he had learned one thing working here, it was never show a predatory abnormal you're afraid of it. Hell, he was afraid of Ashley right now. If he showed it, he would get nowhere. Will gathered his courage and walked to stand in front of the glass. Ashley had stopped pacing now, good, she was just standing on the other side of the glass. He hadn't been this close to her since London, where Clara... He couldn't let that affect him. The living before the dead. Always. Clara was dead. There was still hope for Ashley. He had to try and help her.

"Hey." He spoke as calmly as he could. "Do you wanna tell me your name?" Start with the basics. She didn't respond, just stared at him with those unnerving eyes, teeth bared. "I'm Will." He continued, biting back the instinct to run. "Will Zimmerman." She was completely blank. No fear, no recognition, nothing except an irritated defensiveness. This wasn't going to be easy. "Sorry about the fuss bringing you in. You put up a hell of a fight, trying to kill Kate and all..."

"Kate." Ashley repeated deliberately. Finally, a response.

"Yeah, she came after you left. You used to live here. Do you remember that?" Ashley twisted her torso sideways, shaking her head convulsively.

"Don't."

"OK." Better not to push her. "We won't talk about that. Do you remember why you went for Kate?" Point of last response.

"Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices. Voices." Will let her talk herself into silence. She wasn't looking directly at him now. Her shoulders were hunched, head bowed. Pain? Come off it, no.

"Voices?" Will asked. She nodded like she'd shaken her head, twisting her torso away, moving convulsively.

Voices. Voices. Voices in. Voices in." She lifted one hand to her head without looking at Will.

"Voices inside your head?" He asked. Ashley looked back at him and nodded vigorously. "So voices inside your head told you to attack Kate?"

"Always. Always. Always. Always there." She looked away again.

"The voices are always there?" She nodded. "OK... What are the voices telling you to do right now?"

"Get. Get. Get out." There was real desperation in Ashley's voice. Her eyes darted around her cage. She made another futile effort to teleport out.

"Just get out?" Will prompted. Ashley shook her head convulsively again.

"Mustn't. Mustn't. Mustn't. Mustn't. Mustn't hurt. Mustn't hurt. Mustn't hurt. Mustn't hurt. Mustn't hurt her."

"Kate?" That didn't make any sense. Ashley shook her head. "Who?" Please say it was Magnus; the one person Will didn't believe the original Ashley would have been able to hurt.

"Tall. Tall, long. Tall, long, dark. Tall, long, dark hair." Magnus. She was describing Magnus. Yes!

"Why? Why mustn't you hurt her?" Ashley shook her head.

"Voices. Voices."

"Because the voices say so?" Ashley nodded. "Did they tell you to kill those people?" That was a yes. "Why? Why them but not Magnus, the tall woman?" Ashley shook her head, pain sliding into her voice.

"Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't ask. Don't ask. Don't ask voices."

"Why?" Ashley just shook her head and turned away fully, curling over as if in pain again. "Why not?" She rounded on him, fangs and talons out, eyes red and flashing. She opened her mouth wide and drew her talons down the glass. "OK. OK. It doesn't matter.

He'd gone too far. It was pointless to carry on. Will turned his back and walked out, fighting the urge to sprint for the door. He felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He closed the door behind him and sank to the floor, panting.

"If it's any sort of mutation," Nikola said, "I'll need blood from before or after it occurred or it'll be borderline impossible to see anything beyond the obvious." Magnus nodded.

"I think we can assume it's a mutation." John spoke before she could.

"Blood from before isn't a problem." She said "I think we've still got some stored."

"As for the other, someone actually has got to take blood from her." Nikola spoke resignedly. Magnus drew a steadying breath.

"I'll do it." The other two looked incredulously at her.

"She's got the means to kill you Helen." John said after a moment. "It would be easy for her and she may well not be qualmish about doing it."

"I know."

"Do you just not care?" Magnus had no answer to John's question, She picked up a hypodermic syringe from the medi-kit. "Between us, Nikola and I might be able to hold her still."

"It didn't work last time did it?" Magnus began to walk away. "I think we've already proven brute strength is no good, and I won't let you hurt her again." She quickened her pace.

Yes, Ashley could kill her No, she didn't care. Why? Why didn't she care if she died on Ashley's talons? Because if Ashley killed her in cold blood, maybe it was over. Magnus's rage, her fear had receded, leaving only deep, permeating sorrow for the loss of her daughter in a new way and cold, black hatred of those who had taken her.

"Will." He was pacing up and down the corridor adjacent to Ashley's. He stopped when he saw her.

"Magnus."

"Anything?"

"Well, if I saw this in a human, I'd call it Schizophrenia. Her demeanour changes like flicking a light switch, her behaviour has been... socially unacceptable recently and she's hearing voices she can't seem to disobey. They told her to attack Kate, and presumably the others, and right now, they're telling her to get out of here without hurting you. No one else, just you. She couldn't name you, or herself for that matter, but it's gotta be a good sign." There was still something there. They couldn't take that away from her. No one could do that to Ashley. "Anything from your end?" Will's question pulled Magnus back to the present.

"We need a blood sample from her."

"And you volunteered?" Magnus nodded once. "Well, I guess better you than anyone else. You'd probably be safe. Oh, fair warning, she's not very... with it. She's definitely not talking a lot of sense."

"I expected as much." Magnus didn't meet his eye as she said it. Yes, she'd expected as much, hoped for better.

"It's probably better if I stay here. She got... pissed off with me when I was in there." Magnus nodded again.

"Alright." She approached the door and stepped tentatively into the corridor.

Ashley stood at the front of her cage, blank eyes fixed on her.

"Ashley?" Magnus tried to keep the pain, the fear, the hate from her voice. Ashley didn't react. "Can I come in?" Magnus spoke as if Ashley were upset or angry and had shut herself in her room, as if no one had hurt Ashley deeper than her pride, as if she hadn't mourned her child's passing. Again, no response. What had they done to her? What had they done to her daughter? What had they done to her baby? Magnus stopped her hands from shaking as she let herself into the small room adjacent to Ashley's. She shut herself in. She opened the other door a crack.

Ashley stood in the centre of the room, facing her. Her eyes were no longer blank. They were intent, her brow furrowed, as if she were trying desperately to remember something. What? Who she was? Who Magnus was?

Magnus closed the door behind her with a sense of resignation. She'd sealed herself in with Ashley. For better or for worse.

"Ashley?" She didn't reply, just maintained that intense stare. "I need to take some blood from you." Magnus was speaking as if to an abnormal she wasn't sure was sentient, but could be, not her daughter. "Is that alright?" Still no response. Magnus approached Ashley cautiously. She hated herself for her fear. Keeping her body back, cursing her weakness for doing so, she reached for her daughter's wrist. Still Ashley didn't resist. Even as Magnus's fingers closed on her wrist, only her head move, following Magnus.

Magnus looked back into the intense eyes, fearful. The eyes were still deep, rich brown, no trace of anger. Nothing to forewarn of an attack. Slowly, hesitantly, Magnus lifted Ashley's wrist.

"Alright, this is going to hurt a little bit." She said softly. "It's alright. we're trying to help you." She raised the needle into Ashley's sight. Still she didn't respond. Far from heartening Magnus, Ashley's uneffectible state frightened her more than rage could. What had they done to her? They wouldn't know until she got that blood sample. Magnus drew a steadying breath.

"Ready?" Magnus changed her grip on Ashley's forearm, better exposing the blue vein in the ivory skin of a nocturnal creature in the crook of her elbow. "It's alright. It's alright." She intoned, laying the needle to Ashley's pristine skin. Magnus braced herself and slid the sharp, gleaming metal into the vein.

Nothing. Ashley didn't even tense as the needle pierced her skin. She never took her eyes from Magnus's face as crimson fluid filled the syringe. Magnus didn't quite dare believe it had been so easy. Ashley's skin healed as Magnus withdrew the needle.

"Good Girl." It took all Magnus's strength to keep her voice level. "Thank you Ashley."

Magnus began to back away from Ashley, releasing her arm. Ashley didn't lower it. Her eyes stayed on Magnus's face. Magnus's retreating feet found the wall. The door had to be close. Magnus turned to seek it, then froze.

Hands. Strong, purposeful hands encased her left hand and wrist. She knew she couldn't break the hold. She couldn't command her body to move. So it was over. Magnus felt no fear, no dread, next to nothing at all. If Ashley could just kill her in cold blood, she didn't care anymore. Not murder, euthanasia.

"_Make it quick Ashley."_ She thought. _"Do that for me at least."_

**Long chapter isn't it? I considdered doing two thousand worders, not one two thousand word monster. If anyone wants to complain, feel free.**

**By the way, has anyone been to Gordale scar? (Where they found the second body). If not, do. I haven't seen many more striking landscapes.**

**Reviews (predictions, critique, the lot) welcome as ever.**


	6. Sexto

**WARNING: Requiem spoilers here. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

Monster

But then Magnus felt the soft touch of long hair on her wrist, the pressure of smooth warm sking on the back of her hand. Magnus looked round again. Her daughter had pressed her cheek to the back of Magnus's hand. She looked up when she saw Magnus looking at her and uttered two words.

"Don't go." Ashley's voice and eyes were plaintive, desperate.

"Ashley." Magnus felt the tears and didn't try to stop them. She let Ashley pull her to the floor, back to the wall, beside her. For that one, moment, Ashley was seven again, a child refusing to be left, not quite free of a nightmare's clutches. Then reality returned. Magnus suppressed a sob as she slid the syringe to the far side of the door, where it was easily retrievable. Ashley was still staring at her, eyes still screaming a silent plea. "I won't go Ashley." Magnus didn't lie. For as long as Ashley wanted her there, Magnus wouldn't leave her. "I won't go." Magnus flicked her eyes to the CCTV camera in the corridor. She didn't care who was watching. All that mattered right now was her and Ashley. Nothing else.

Ashley relinquished her mother's hand, instead fastening her arms around Magnus's body and lying down next to her, head in her lap. The movement of almost twenty years before made fresh tears bite at Magnus's eyes. She began to stroke Ashley's cheek, as she had then, just letting herself cry. Ashley's eyes were now trying to understand. Everything she did was so child like. Her child.

The pair sat in silence for a long while, the only movement, Magnus's hand over Ashley's face. Magnus was deep in her own musings, just looking at her child. Her golden hair spread behind her, over Magnus's legs, deep, mahogany eyes meeting hers. How had she ever produced a child so beautiful? Ashley was far more beautiful than she had ever been.

Magnus had no idea how long she sat like that, but a while after the tears had stopped, the door had opened a crack and John's hand had slid through, taking the blood. Ashley had half risen, but a restraining hand and a few soothing words were all it took to keep her still. Was this really the creature that had killed so brutally, lying here now with her head in Magnus's lap, so placid?

"Ashley?" She looked up. "Do you remember when you were small, and you'd had a nightmare, we'd sit like this? After you'd woken me up and we'd stayed in my room for a while, I'd carry you back to your room and we'd sit like this until you went back to sleep." Magnus couldn't bear the memory of how Ashley had woken her, not after the attack. Not after what she'd said. She'd been afraid then and she was afraid now. But it was a different king of fear. Not so immediate, not so consuming. This fear watched her struggle, patient, waiting. It stalked her like a wolf. Magnus knew that in the here and now, Ashley was docile but for how long? She couldn't bear to think of what they'd made Ashley into.

So she tried not to think. She kept her mind out of the past and out of the future. In the present, she could cope, so there her mind remained for as long as Magnus could hold it there.

She didn't know if it was hours or minutes that passed. But then Ashley whimpered.

"Ashley?" She lay with her eyes closed breathing faster now. "Ashley, are you in pain?" The wave of tension that gripped every part of her beautiful body spoke for itself. Every muscle went iron hard and she grimaced. "Ashley, where? Where are you hurt?" Was whatever John had done to subdue her still causing her pain. Why now? Ashley withdrew her arms from Magnus's body, rolling away to stop on her hands and knees, panting and grimacing. "Ashley, breathe. Tell me where you hurt."

"Go." Ashley's soft hiss hurt like a blow.

"Ashley..."

"Go now!" Ashley was shouting. She clambered to her feet and staggered to the far corner, bracing her hands against the wall as another surge of pain racked her body.

"Ashley..."

"Go!" She gasped and twisted, talons slid from her fingertips.

"No." She was turning back into what they'd made her. Her daughter was slipping away. "Ashley, stay with me. Fight it." She couldn't lose her now. "Ashley, don't. Please don't leave me." Magnus was on her feet, didn't remember getting up.

Ashley whipped round, sharp, vampiric teeth bared, eyes blazing red.

"Ashley." The door opened behind her. Strong hands pulled her back, away from her child. She struggled in vain. The hands were too strong. Two doors closed between them. "I can't leave her!" She couldn't reach Ashley now.

Magnus's frantic cries of protest gave way to broken, defeated tears. They'd taken her away again. The strong hands released her. Magnus fell against the wall and slumped down it, not even trying to control her tears.

It had been month since she'd cried like this by daylight, longer since anyone had seen it. She still cried at night. She'd slept even less since she'd lost her, afraid of what the darkness would show her, afraid of letting her guard down, opening the gates to dreams, her subconscious.

"Magnus?" The voice of the one who'd taken her away from Ashley was rough and deep.

"Why?" The monosyllabic accusation was all Magnus could manage through her tears.

"Hoh. Had to. She'd have killed you." Magnus shook her head.

"No." The one faint word was all she could manage.

"Too risky." Bigfoot waited for her to answer. When she didn't, he continued. "Druitt, Tesla and Will have her blood. Trying to make sense of it. They want you help."

Magnus began to wrestle her jerky breathing back under control, letting Bigfoot pull her to her feet. It was some time before she was in control enough to face the others. If she was going to help Ashley, she had to figure out what they'd done to her. To do that, she had to help John and Nikola.

John had been a qualified doctor longer than she had. Nikola was, if not the most ethical, the most experienced geneticist on the face of the earth. They'd find a way to help Ashley. She had to believe it.

John looked up sharply as Magnus entered the lab.

"It's good to see you safe." He and Will stood at separate computers, Nikola was bent over an electronic microscope, next to another computer. Henry hovered uncertainly in the background.

"Magnus, that was amazing."

"What?" She had absolutely no idea what Will was talking about.

"What you did with Ashley." He said it as if it were obvious. Magnus shook her head.

"It didn't work, I lost her again."

"Do you really think that wouldn't have happened? You got her relaxed, docile, responding to her name and stable for nearly four hours. That's a hell of a lot with any patient like her."

"Speaking of which," Magnus changed the subject determinedly. "what have you found?"

"Huggy bear's got a theory." Nikola jerked his head at Will. Huggy bear? A flash of pain crossed Will's face. What? "He wanted to talk to you about it, not us." Will drew a steadying breath, then began.

"Magnus, when I look at her, I see... dramatic, fast mood swings, fear, aggression, physical pain, irrationality. I'm just starting to wonder if I was wrong about Schizophrenia."

"And?" Magnus didn't follow him.

"Well, I guess it's starting to look like Bermuda, with the Mermaids." Oh, no. Oh, God no. Not that. Not Ashley.

"Something you've encountered before?" John asked. Magnus was grateful for Will's careful choice of words.

"We came across a mermaid population that had literally torn itself apart. We took a body on board our submarine for study and a microscopic parasite that had infected the mermaid transferred itself to me, through gloves. That was what had made them kill each other. It made me spasmodically irrational and violent. I actually tried to kill Will and... Dear God." It had just struck her the danger they were all in. "Through gloves.

"Oh God." The fear in Will's voice was justified.

"What?" Henry looked bemusedly from Magnus to Will.

"When the parasite infected Magnus," Will began, "it did it through gloves because she handled that fluid behind the cranial wall. We never confirmed it, but..."

"But the parasite is probably also carried by blood." Magnus carried on. "So when Ashley... she could have passed it on to her victims."

"We all handled the bodies." Nikola said sharply.

"So any number of us could be infected." Will concluded.

"I never went near 'em." Henry's voice was as sharp, afraid.

"And you haven't touched any of our blood? Saliva? Urine?" Henry shook his head "Then you're probably clean." Magnus said. Cold comfort.

"The big guy?" Henry asked.

"He handled the corpses."

"Kate?"

"So did she."

"Oh gees." Henry sank his head into his hands. "So I'm the only one who's not gonna go psyco."

"We don't know that." Magnus soothed. "And we won't until we've tested. Will, let me do you, then go and get spinal fluid from Kate and Bigfoot."

"What do you do if you find it?" Nikola asked.

"Well, we can try anti-parasitic drugs," She began, not meeting his eye. "but the only thing proven to work is asphyxiation, waiting for the parasite to leave, then trying to revive the host." Magnus kept her language blank, not even suggesting the mortal fear, the battle for every breath, the blackening of the world, the knowledge of how you were about to die.

"Glad I asked." Nikola said sarcastically.

**Aren't I evil?**

**Who is infected? Let's hear the predictions. What problems will that present? How much more unpredictable can John get? Would asphyxiation work on a vampire?**


	7. Septimo

**More Requiem spoilers here. Enjoy.**

Monster

Fifteen minutes later, Magnus sat at the main computer, waiting for it to finish its analysis of the six fluid samples. It was tortuous. She kept seeing flashes of what had happened on the submarine. Hearing her voice scream that Will was a liar, tasting the salt water in the engine room, smelling the blood in her nose, seeing Will's panic as she tried to infect him, feeling her finger pull the trigger to kill him.

"Magnus," Will's voice brought her sharply back to the present. A blessing. "we've got a problem if Nikola's infected. Has anyone ever tried to asphyxiate a vampire?"

"It might well not kill me." Nikola added. "And what if it got John? We can do without him being any more violent or irrational."

"I feel fine." John snapped

"You do though." Magnus said quietly. "Aside the bleeding and the pain, you don't think anything's wrong." She turned a pen in her hands. They were shaking. Oh, dear God.

"Calm down." She told herself firmly. "You're frightened, that's probably why."

The computer beeped twice. Magnus turned to stare at it.

"It's done." She said, keeping her voice from cracking with fear. She struck enter; show results.

BF. Bigfoot. His cells were static, unmolested.

"Bigfoot's clear." She said as steadily as she could as everyone else crowded round, Henry on the far side of the desk, his face ashen. Magnus struck `next` then clenched her fists.

KF. Kate. Just the cells of a human, no devil among them. "So's Kate."

"I've got those two at least." Henry's desperate tone gave him the air of one clutching at straws. Magnus unclenched her fists for long enough to hit `next` again.

NT. Nikola. The cells were strange, more opaque, sleeker, but his. She glanced up at him.

"You're fine." He couldn't quite stifle his sigh of relief.

"I guess at least those of us who are left can be asphyxiated." Will said quietly.

"Can survive it is another question." Magnus replied, tapping `next` again.

WZ. Will. Identical to Kate's. He turned away, exhaling. "Will's clean." Magnus said it for Henry's benefit. Henry dragged his palms down his face.

"So now it's just you two." He said faintly. Magnus nodded and hit `next` again.

HM. Her. She saw again the multiplying parasite, infiltrating her cells. Then the image loaded. She wasn't infected. Her cells were alone. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm alright Henry." She answered his unasked question.

JD. John Druitt, the only one left. The thought of that parasite with that entity... He'd be unstoppable if... worse than she had been... The image loaded. The whole room was waiting, even the abnormals around. Magnus looked. John did only slightly better than Nikola at hiding his relief.

"So none of us is infected." Magnus dropped her head into her hands, breathing slowly.

"But that doesn't mean Ashley is." Magnus wished she could put Will down, declare him wrong, say that Ashley was safe. She couldn't.

"The parasite probably wouldn't have stayed in the bodies for that long." She said softly.

"It got out of you in seconds."

"That said, it stayed in the mermaid." She turned to Nikola. "Is there any of her blood left?"

"Half the sample." He replied, gesturing to a test tube. "Oh, before I forget, the wine cellar?"

"Hasn't moved." She answered. Henry began to set up the test, looking a little nauseated and being very careful to keep a layer of glass between his hand and the blood. Nikola walked out. Magnus sank her head back into her hands, trying to think of anything but what Ashley would have to go through if she was infected. Seeing it happen to the person she loved most in the world... She'd seem sane again at the end, Magnus had. Ashley would plead, she'd panic, she'd scream.

"Magnus?" Did Will keep pulling her out of her thoughts deliberately? If so, she was grateful. "Do you think the parasite will show up in the blood?"

"Given it's reproductive rate," Magnus replied, "I don't doubt it would have to spread beyond the spinal fluid in a matter of hours."

"And if she is infected, she has been for longer than that."

"So if it's there, we'll find it." What then? Murder her own child?

"I don't suppose this parasite can account for Ashley's physical mutation?" John spoke for the first time in a long while. He'd always been like that, only speaking if he had something to say. Magnus shook her head.

"Trust me." Will said "If the parasite's there and we eradicate it, her behaviour will get a whole lot easier to manage."

"Is that computer done yet?" Nikola called, returning with a bottle of wine and a glass. Magnus looked back at the screen. As if in response to Nikola's question, it beeped twice. Oh God. Oh God.

Show results.

AM. The cells were sleek, opaque, unnatural. This Magnus scarcely registered. The cells were alone. Ashley was clean.

"Magnus, I'm sorry." Will really sounded it. When Magnus had got over her relief enough to speak, all she said was,

"What on earth for?" Her voice shook, she felt weak, light headed from release. Ashley was safe. She could live. She could breathe. Thank God, Magnus didn't have to kill her child. Thank God. Oh, thank God.

"Magnus, I put you through hell and for what?"

"For being able to rule it out." She replied, her voice somewhat more stable. "It was a valid, logical theory. If you'd been right and not said anything, what could have happened? You know what the damned thing is capable of. You're never at fault for voicing a rational theory." She'd used that speech at some point with every protégé she'd ever had. Not in this sort of situation though. Not where so much was at stake.

"So we're completely in the dark." Nikola said sharply.

"Well, what do we know?" Magnus asked, thinking aloud.

"Vampiric tendencies." John responded at once.

"Can teleport." Will, catching on.

"Stronger than a normal human." Nikola.

"Schizophrenia symptoms: hearing voices, split personality..." Will

"Shift in iris pigment." John

"Which is unstable." Her.

"Doesn't remember much about who she is." Will.

"Bloodlust." Nikola.

"Not speaking coherent English." Will

"Almost immune to sedative." John.

"Muscle memory seems to be the strongest." Her.

"Heals very fast." John. A longer pause this time.

"Physical pain." Will.

Nikola swore in Serbian.

"What?" Magnus snapped, fear surging.

"It's only a theory, let me check." He turned back to his computer screen. A moment's pause, then he swore again.

"What?" Magnus repeated, fear becoming panic.

"It's as I thought. The mutation is at least partially... oh. Now that's interesting."

"What?"The whole room was questioning Nikola now.

"Three things:" He turned round, feeling none of Magnus's urgency. "One; this is all far too neat and localised to be natural. This is engineered, and engineered by someone approaching my level of expertise, relatively speaking that is. In other words, someone very clever with access to some rather fantastic equipment. This or better."

"The Cabal." Will put Nikola's assertion into plain English.

"We know that." John's tone made it clear that he'd no patience whatsoever with Nikola. Neither did Magnus.

"Therefore," Nikola continued as though he hadn't been interrupted. "it should be easy to isolate the mutation. Two; the mutation is double locked. They caused one mutation, let it settle, then caused another. That makes things a whole lot worse. It means I need to pick the mutations apart before I can even consider trying to reverse them.

"But you can do it?" Still Nikola ignored Magnus's fear.

"Three; look at these markers here, here and here. One, or possibly both of the mutation is source blood derived, so irreversible."

"No." Magnus shook her head. He had to be able to help Ashley. He just had to.

"Helen, I'll try. I spent fifteen years trying to find a way, just in case I ever needed it, but I don't think source blood mutations can be reversed. As for the other, I can try." He spoke a little more compassionately now.

"What do you need?" She asked flatly.

"I've got pre and post mutation blood samples... samples from every source blood mutant possible. That's you two and me. Oh, wine cellar access goes without saying." Ignoring the last comment, Magnus went for syringes to take blood from each of them. He had to be able to help Ashley. He just had to. She'd do everything in her power to help him. She'd work nonstop until it was done. She didn't care how anyone nagged her to stop, to rest. Only one thing mattered. Ashley.

**Couldn't be bothered to do a cliff-hanger. Do I hear anyone complaining?**

**Any reviews, however brutal, welcome.**


	8. Octavo

**Thanks for the reviews. They keep me at this. Mum, if not for your spoken reviews in the first place, this would be OOC nonsense, so thank you.**

Monster

"Morning." Henry walked in, yawning and carrying a tea tray, followed by Will. "Compliments of the Big Guy."

"Morning?" Magnus repeated blankly. Had she been in the lab all night? "What time is it?"

"Half seven." Will said. "You've been at this sixteen hours. The Big Guy's a bit worried that you haven't eaten."

"I'm fine." Magnus replied firmly. "But thanks for the tea."

"Ah, the Big Guy guessed you were tea." Henry handed a cup to John. "If you're not, he's sorry."

"Thank him. He's right. How did he know?" John asked absently. Henry grinned and looked away.

"Doesn't matter."

"How?" Will repeated John's question, evidently curious now.

"Similar upbringing to Magnus, just the Big Guy had a funny way of saying it."

"Which was?" Nikola leapt on the opportunity to goad John.

"Not saying." Henry replied and walked out. Then it hit Magnus.

"I need to see to Kate." She began to walk away. Will caught her arm.

"The Big Guy did it. It's OK. Ashley's calmed right down." Magnus didn't need telling twice.

Ashley stood with one hand against the glass. She turned her head as Magnus came in, eyes blue and intent again, a soft smile lighting her face. Magnus felt her own face light up, a responding beacon. She recognised her. She recognised her at once. Magnus almost ran through both doors. She had to reach her.

Ashley stood waiting just inside the door. Something, some unacknowledged instinct kept Magnus from running straight into Ashley's embrace, made her stop, close the door, wait for a response. It came. Ashley took two steps over to her and laid the back of her hand against Magnus's face, her smile replaced by that fierce concentration.

"Do you remember?" Magnus asked her quietly. "Do you remember?" Silently, Ashley nodded her head. "And you won't hurt me?" Ashley shook her head, still mute. "But you don't know why." Ashley's eyes filled with grief, pain as she shook her head. Magnus felt the same grief swell within her; grief for lost knowledge, knowledge of love. Yet something remained. The way she held her body, her face, was so recognisably Ashley, but she remembered nothing. She'd re-learnt her name, yes, but recognised no one, nothing around her, the place she'd lived all her life. "What did they do to you? If you could tell us... or do you even remember that?" Ashley's blank expression was a clear answer. She knew nothing. They'd taken everything from her. She might still stand before Magnus, her skin might be warm, a heart might beat from within its cage, but they'd killed her. They'd destroyed Ashley, they'd taken her life. They'd killed her.

Ashley seated herself against the wall and pulled Magnus down beside her. This time, Ashley sat upright, her head on her mother's shoulder. Magnus leant her head into Ashley's. She didn't even try to talk this time. She didn't trust herself to. She was lost in her own thoughts. Ashley was a source blood mutant. They'd put her through source blood mutation. The beasts! Even after one hundred and twenty-five years, the memory was still fresh.

She remembered sitting in that chair, determinedly steady, hiding her fear. She'd been the first. She'd had no idea what the needle in Nikola's hand would do to her. Nikola, Nigel, James had asked relentlessly if she really wanted to do it. Her resolve, her thirst for knowledge had outdone her fear. Her answer hadn't changed. Only John hadn't questioned her decision. It had obviously hurt him to know what she was about to do, but he hadn't pushed her. He'd let her decide, known she wouldn't be persuaded otherwise. John had just crouched beside her, her right hand in his left. They'd watched together ad Nikola had slid the thick needle into her left forearm. She'd winced, but kept her forearm lose. Then all five had waited, holding their breaths. Then it had started. A line of pure blinding fire had shot up her arm. She'd gasped. Helen. Helen. Helen. Helen. Four spectators, four voices seeking confirmation. She'd looked around at them, drawn breath to give it. The pain had gone. The reprieve had been only a moment long.

Fire through her arm, shoulder, reaching her chest. With every heartbeat, the fire had spread, burning her from the inside. God, it had hurt. In 159 years, she hadn't come across much, if anything, that had hurt more. For almost half an hour, she'd been conscious. The longest half hour of her life, possibly excluding the last half hour of labour. Nothing had increased the pain, or decreased it. Just an unending wall of fire. She hadn't been able to move. She'd been helpless. None of them had known what to do. She'd been completely at the source blood's mercy. John had held her. She remembered that. He'd known he was powerless, so had tried to calm her down. It would have worked; at any other time between '85 and early August '88, the feeling of his arms around her would have soothed her at once. Not that time. Then, she'd known only pain. She'd been so sure she was going to die. There and then. 1886. Beyond that first half hour in John's arms, screaming when she had the strength, otherwise just trying to breathe, Magnus remembered nothing, but she'd seen it in the others. That first half hour or so, living hell, then consciousness began to slide into a halfway state; reflexes and no more, seizures punctuating it. Then the coma. The hours on hours of coma, scattered with vital signs failing for up to a minute at a time. The fever that came with it, raging, burning. Almost high enough to kill. Enough to cause brain damage. Was that it? Did source blood normally do that? Maybe the five had just been lucky.

Again, Magnus's perception of time began to slide. She found herself trying not to think, just keeping her hand in Ashley's, trying not to wonder how long she could stay at this oasis of peace. Then Ashley's tranquil face darkened with pain. She tensed.

"No." Magnus tightened her arm around her daughter. "Ashley, don't leave me." Ashley pulled loose effortlessly, getting to her feet. Magnus shook her head, numb. "Ashley." She could feel herself starting to cry again. Ashley pulled Magnus quickly to her feet and pushed her hard towards the door, hissing with pain.

"Go." Magnus turned to fight, but Ashley pushed her again. "Go now." She was almost pleading. She knew. Dear God, she knew what was about to happen. It was hurting Ashley to see Magnus there. But she couldn't leave.

"I'll come back." She whispered. "We'll find a way to help you Ashley."

"Go." This time, Magnus obeyed. Heart yielded to head. Science could help Ashley, more than her mother's arms. But it didn't make the pain of leaving her any less. Turning her eyes down, fighting gathering tears, Magnus could see that her body was whole. But she didn't feel it. As the near impenetrable metal cut her from Ashley, Magnus felt as if she'd left most of her chest on the far side, severed.

She didn't look back at Ashley's cage as she fled. She couldn't bear to think of what was happening to Ashley now, to see it...

Magnus fled, next to ran. Where she went, she didn't know. She felt only pain. All she knew was that when she stopped, she was alone in a store room. She was gasping, had yielded to tears, but didn't remember doing so. She shouted. A wordless shout of futile, agonised rage. She slammed the full weight of her body against the shelf. Several dressings hit the floor at her feet.

"What did they do to you?" The sound of her pain, her rage, echoed dully round the small room. "Monsters! They're bloody monsters!" Her hands clenched into shaking fists. "What did they do to you? They took you away from me!" She'd have done it herself.

In that moment, Magnus didn't fear what Ashley had done. It didn't repulse her. She'd have killed them herself, felt them die under her hands, felt no remorse, pure vengeance. Righteous vengeance. She wanted to kill them. She was as skilled a surgeon as John. It wouldn't take much to adapt that skill; to harm, not heal. She wanted their blood on her hands. For what they'd done to Ashley, she wanted to kill them. Ashley. They'd taken her life. They could as well have killed her. Magnus bent from the waist as a fresh wave of tears overcame her. She was beyond fighting them. They'd taken Ashley's life. She wanted an eye for an eye. A limb for a limb. A tooth for a tooth. A life for a life.

**Sincere thanks to the person who posted the video at you /watch?v=4rmUxRMsaDs . It fought writer's block like nothing else for this bit. Watch it if you're a SWIDOAD in need of a good cry. This video led me to Magnus in the darkest hours, where I needed her to be.**


	9. Nono

**OK, warning. From this Sunday for two weeks, nothing will be posted. I will be camping. This story still has a long way to go, I'm not even sure if it's half way through yet. Note in this chapter the differences in Nikola's and John's reactions to Helen, and in all chapters actually.**

Monster

"Magnus?" Will. She gasped sharply, trying to control her tremulous breathing, embarrassed that Will had seen her like this. For a long moment, she stood, fighting for her omnipresent self control. Eventually, she turned to face him.

"Will?" She didn't want or need his help. She needed to be left alone.

"Magnus I... I know how tough this must be on you." His steady, consolidating tone made her defensive at once. "You lost Ashley best part of a year ago, you mourned her then. You were recovering, as far as it's possible to. Now, fate's holding her over your head. Sometimes she's here, sometimes... Her body's back, but not her mind. There's none of the stuff that made her Ashley. If that doesn't hurt..."

It did hurt. Magnus had thought that having any part of Ashley back would ease the weeping wound inside her. It had turned septic now. The pain of it was omnipresent. She couldn't ignore it. It blurred her mind every moment. Will's interference had made it worse. She felt tears, tears she'd fought so hard to suppress return with a vengeance.

"Just go Will." She growled. She wanted to be left alone. He shook his head and stepped closer.

"I know it's bad right now, but I think (note, think) Tesla's making progress. He's been pacing around muttering in some eastern European language, when he's speaking English I don't understand any better but he's looking pleased with himself. I think he thinks he can do it." Hope. Faint, resilient hope, refusing to die, revived.

"He'll be insufferable if he gets it right." Was all Magnus could manage. How could she voice what she felt?

"Yeah." Will nodded. "Just don't go giving up, OK? And if you ever need to talk..." He didn't bother to finish. He knew she wouldn't go to him. It was an admission of defeat, a white flag. He was right though. She couldn't give up. "You wanna wait a bit before you go back to the others?" Magnus nodded mutely.

The scene in the main lab had changed little. John and Nikola still worked, Henry still hovered awkwardly in the background.

"What have you found?" She asked, making them all look round.

"Three ideas:" Nikola stood up and faced her. "One, use RNA drugs. Get into the regeneration cycle and affect her slowly. The blood trial proved that won't work. There is no damn regeneration cycle. Passive treatment is impossible. Two, viral invasion. Again, blood trial invalidates the virus. It's amazing to watch actually. I'd love to pit my cells against Anthrax or something in a lab trial..."

"Nikola." Magnus snapped. She had no patience with his odes to vampires.

"Three, fight fire with fire. Manufacture and use a biological catalyst like the source blood, to break the mutation which isn't source blood derived. Her DNA will revert to its original state."

"Should." John corrected. "Breaking open her genetic code could effectively cause radiation poisoning, cancer, or just kill her outright."

"Could." Nikola countered. "I'm no beginner and the odds of that are... what? One in a couple of thousand, and what's the alternative?" Dear God. How was Magnus supposed to choose? Status quo or risk killing Ashley? Everyone was looking at her, waiting. How did she begin to choose?

"Doc?" Henry said tentatively. Magnus met his nervous eyes. "I... I don't wanna tell you what to do or anything, I... I mean it's your call, it's absolutely your call but... but for what it's worth... I know you knew her better than I did, but... I just don't think Ash would have wanted to be like this."

Magnus looked down again. He was right. Ashley wouldn't have wanted this. The odds were in her favour. And if not... Henry was right. Ashley would rather be dead. Magnus just couldn't... She chided herself. Didn't she have the strength to honour Ashley's wishes, or was she going to clutch at fragments for the rest of her life? Ashley's best chance was Nikola. Magnus couldn't deny her that.

"Do it. How long do you need?"

"Quite honestly," Nikola replied, "I don't know."

"Well, we'd better get started then."

* * *

"OK, this looks promising." Nikola straightened up from the microscope. Magnus walked over and looked. The cells in the sample were changing, now looking more like hers than Nikola's. They'd been working for 39 hours straight, Nikola doing the actual work with the catalyst, Magnus and John checking his work. A good arrangement. Nikola's main problem was his tendency to rush, to leave things out of the equations. That was what had happened in the Mexico clinic. He hadn't accounted for things going wrong.

This idea, the sixth, seemed to be working. The changed cells looked healthy at least.

"Not fool proof," Nikola conceded, "but I doubt I'll get anything better. Talk about fighting fire with fire."

"Her cells destroy everything milder." John took Helen's place at the microscope. "But not much will resist source blood."

"Limitations:" Nikola spoke again. "This will undo one of two mutations, which, I have no idea. Secondly, like when we injected you, Helen, in '86, I've got no idea what it will do to living systems. It's a risk."

"I made my choice." Magnus snapped. She didn't want to open the door to doubt again. It was easier just to accept now. I'll jump off a cliff and hope I sprout wings. James had said that to her for more than a century. She'd have felt a lot safer with James's infallible logic behind her.

"How the hell are you gonna dose her?" Magnus spun round.

"Kate! What are you doing up?"

"Come on Doc. It's been three days. I'm bored out of my skull; anyway, Big Guy said I could." Magnus let the matter drop. After sixty years of learning, Bigfoot's judgement was very sound. "But seriously, how are you going to dose her?"

"The easiest way is probably for me to just inject her."

"She's fine with Magnus." Will answered Kate's disbelieving expression from half way up the stairs. "But not with anyone else."

"Magnus, once you've done it, get out of there." Nikola said earnestly.

"Why?" What did he suspect?

"She's virtually a vampire so she won't really feel pain, but even so, I doubt she'll enjoy reverse mutation." Magnus looked down. How much more did her baby have to endure? "It won't be anything like what we had in '86." Nikola continued quickly. "It's a less aggressive serum and a more resilient subject. It's just a precaution. If she turns on you Helen, you'll die. Inject her, then get out."

* * *

Magnus opened the door. Ashley stood up and started towards her, smiling, eyes trusting. Magnus had to betray her. She swallowed hard.

"Ashley?" Ashley nodded, taking Magnus's hands in hers. She swallowed hard.

"Ashley?" Ashley nodded, taking Magnus's hands in hers. She felt the syringe there and stared at it curiously for a moment. Then, she proffered her forearm, no fear, no suspicion. Trust. "Ashley, we've found a way to help you. I've got to inject you with this. It..." The source blood. The searing, devouring pain. "It won't hurt much." She couldn't say it. Magnus slipped the needle into Ashley's vein. The trust in her eyes didn't flicker. She had to do it. It was so much harder when Ashley was like this. Magnus emptied Nikola's drug into her child's vein.

A feeble echo of the source blood's fire shot up Magnus's arm. She withdrew the needle. Still Ashley didn't react. How long until she felt it?

"Magnus?" Will's voice on her radio. "Magnus, get out here. Now." She didn't move. "Magnus!" Ashley took Magnus's hand in hers again. Magnus pulled away. Ashley released her, looking hurt.

"I'm sorry Ashley. I'm so sorry." Magnus bit back tears again. "I've got to go. I'll come back." She turned back to the door, feeling Ashley's eyes on her. How long? How long 'till the drug took effect? Magnus closed the door behind her. Her child's absence tore at her.

* * *

"It's done." Magnus walked into the adjacent corridor, just out of Ashley's sight, where John, Nikola, Will and Henry were gathered. She was surprised how composed she sounded. The five of them were gathered round Henry's portable screen; presumably he'd brought CCTV up.

"It could be an hour or two until we see any effects at all." Nikola said, not looking up. He was the only one not to. Magnus turned her eyes on the screen. John moved to look directly over Henry's head to make room for her. Ashley still stood facing the door. She could see that her daughter still wanted her there, needed her. But she couldn't help. Not now. It was done. If she tried to return, the others would stop her. There was no point. She'd make herself appear unstable, to Will if no one else. Magnus turned away from the screen and began to pace. It would be a long hour.

"Doc?" Henry had long since seated himself against the wall. For the first time in their silent vigil, he spoke. "She's pacing around." It wasn't just Magnus who went to look. Ashley was walking the breadth of her cage. Long, swift strides. Did she feel it now? The fire consuming her being.

"Could be stress." Will said.

"I doubt it." Magnus replied. It was happening to Ashley; she had to go to her. "If she's pacing like that..."

"So were you." Will cut her off. "You've being doing that since you got in here."

**Will this work? If so, will there be hitches, what hitches? If not, what then? I want to know peoples reactions.**


	10. Decimo

**Sorry for the long delay. To make up for it, this is a long chapter. By the way, my changing from `Magnus` to `Helen` in this chapter is a stylistic choice, not an error.**

Monster

Ashley's pacing went on for what, to Magnus, was a long time, in the same way. But then, almost imperceptibly, no one noticed at first, Ashley began to speed up. Suddenly, she was running, tearing around, kicking against the walls to turn. She wasn't even repeating a course now. She was just running, wild, afraid.

"Cage behaviour?" Will suggested. "We've seen it before in abnormals used to travelling large distances. They'll try to whether or not they're caged. She's been in there for a while now. She's bound to be frustrated."

"Or in pain." Magnus murmured.

Nikola muttered a few words in Serbian and began to walk away. "Call me if she does anything interesting."

"Where are you going?" John challenged.

"Wine cellar." John shook his head at Nikola's reaction and looked back at the screen. As Magnus mimicked him, Ashley fell to the floor. She'd turned too sharply. Her shoulders had barely hit the floor when, hissing in fanged rage, she was running again. Magnus looked away briefly. How long did she have to endure this?

Ashley seemed tireless. She just ran. Occasionally, she would fall, always rising at once, unfazed. Magnus's eyes followed her daughter as she sprinted into another sharp turn. Magnus saw fleetingly Ashley rise again. Her mind deceived her. Ashley didn't rise. Her sleek body curled tightly, facing away, shaking, tensed. Magnus didn't need the frantic rise and fall of her daughter's chest to see what this was now. There was no denying it. She had to help her.

Magnus started for the door. She had to reach Ashley. She'd only taken two steps when a strong hand on her arm stopped her. She looked round. John. John had grasped her right arm just above the elbow. She jerked her arm sharply, trying to break his grip, failing.

"What do you think you're doing Helen?" How could he not understand?

"John, look at her." Magnus fought to keep her voice from cracking. "Can't you see what she's going through? Or have you forgotten what that feels like?"

"You can't help her." John spoke more loudly now. "There's nothing you can do but let the mutation run it's course. For as long as any part of her is like Nikola, she'll dissolve any drugs you give her. And however irrational she was before, Helen, being in pain will make her worse."

"So what am I supposed to do?" Magnus growled.

"Watch," He released her arm. "and wait." Magnus turned away quickly, hiding her face from him, knowing what it would betray.

It was torture. Magnus remembered only too well what that felt like, to see Ashley go through it... To know she'd told Nikola to...

It lasted maybe two more minutes. Ashley staggered upright and started for the door then fell again. But it was different now. Ashley's breath came in harsh, raged gasps, her limbs twitched and convulsed. Seizure. Ashley had gone into a full blown seizure.

"John..." Magnus turned for the door.

"I know." This time he didn't stop her. They ran. Into Ashley's corridor, through both metal doors, into her cage. Ashley's body contorted and twitched on the floor, gasping, shallow, uneven gasps of breath. John crouched down as Magnus did. Ashley didn't react. She didn't seem to know who they were. Her open eyes were unfocused, unseeing.

"Ashley? Ashley, can you hear me?" Magnus laid a hand to the side of Ashley's face. She jerked back. Ashley's bared teeth had snapped shut exactly where her hand had just been.

"Pulse is shallow, rapid and irregular." John had her by the wrist.

"We need to get her to the OR." Shock. It had to be. Magnus barely felt anything at all.

"Mr. Foss," Henry, Will and Kate had appeared on the far side of the glass. "Lower the EM shield." He turned back to Magnus and answered her unasked question. "I'd rather not carry her that far." Magnus nodded. She felt as if she were a shell, her core, her substance was gone. Her feelings, maternal instinct had been driven away by what she was. Doctor Magnus. Steady, wise, infallible Doctor Magnus. Helen, frightened, confused Helen had been stunned into silence. How long? How long could she wear the mask? How long 'till she saw this for what it really was.

Ashley, her one child, her only family, the person for who she cared most in the world, was dying in front of her.

John met her eyes. As one they slid their arms under Ashley's twitching form and lifted her. She now lay in the arms of her parents, her body supported between theirs. It should have happened a long time ago.

Fire. The OR materialised around her. She could still feel Ashley's warm, twitching body against hers.

"Hold on sweetheart." She breathed. "Hold on." They laid her on the table. John's hand returned to Ashley's wrist. Magnus went for the monitor.

"Pulse rising." John said as soon as he touched her wrist. "And weakening. If we don't stop the seizure..."

"Magnus?" His deep, growling voice at the door told Magnus who he was before she looked. With him here, John was more use elsewhere.

"John, get Nikola." She turned back to him as she spoke. "We need him now." John stared back for a moment, as if to protest, then fire flashed again and he was gone.

"Nikola's drug?" Bigfoot asked, helping Magnus with the monitor. She shook her head.

"We don't know." Magnus turned her eyes on the monitor as it activated. Ashley's heart rate passed 140 as she watched, it climbed ominously, constantly. Her blood pressure, oh God, her blood pressure fell as her pulse climbed. "We need to stop the seizure. Give her five milligrams of diazepam."

"Five?" He asked, going for the bottle, armed with a syringe.

"I've got no idea how resistant she'll be." Ashley's chattering, bared teeth looked human, but her eyes were blazing red, wild, unfocussed.

Fire flashed through him. The wine cellar materialised around John.

"Nikola!" He began to run through the semi-darkness, teleporting every few yards, racing time. He knew the stakes. He had to find Nikola and get him back to the OR. He knew what would happen if he didn't. His child was dying. Nikola had to know how to stop it. He just had to. If Ashley died, Helen... He knew what it would do to her. If she lost Ashley again, she'd welcome death. He could give her that at least. A single, well placed knife stroke to the neck, the feeling of her warm, living blood over his hands... No. Whatever came of this, he could never kill Helen. John cursed the nameless entity silently. It was what made him think like that. He knew as much now. It wouldn't make him kill her. No matter what came of this. Right now, he had to find the vampire and get him to Ashley. There was still a chance they could save her.

"Give her another five mg, this isn't working." Magnus saw Bigfoot reach for the bottle as she turned back to the monitor. Dear God, Ashley's pulse had passed 180, was nearing 190. She wasn't thrashing now, just twitching, gasping. That was all the diazepam had done.

"Done." Bigfoot straightened. "How long can she survive? She's burning up." Magnus shook her head, disbelieving.

"I don't know. I'm fighting blind here." She was helpless. Ashley, her child, was dying in front of her and she could do nothing. She could feel her own breath tearing a path through her body, as harsh as Ashley's. She reached for Ashley's twitching hand. It was hot. Far too hot. '86 all over again. Watching the ones she loved most endure torture, survive it? Oh, God, she didn't know. She had no idea how long Ashley had left.

There'd been no sign of Nikola in the wine cellar. He had to be between there and Ashley's cage. John tensed to teleport, faster than running. He felt the fire. Pain. Then it was gone. Damn it. He hadn't moved. He'd gone into the EM shield. He cursed under his breath again, breaking into a run.

"Still not working." Bigfoot grunted. He looked pointedly at the diazepam. Magnus nodded.

"10 this time." She was hoping against hope that Ashley's system wasn't just dissolving the drug, that she'd see some effect before...

Ashley's pulse was over 200 now. The seizure was getting worse. It would eventually...if she didn't stop it. She had to stop it. She couldn't let Ashley go. She couldn't endure that again.

"Nikola!"

"What?" The cold, superior voice, usually a blight, was a blessing. The vampire turned to face him, bottle in hand, as John rounded the corner. John halted in front of Nikola and started to speak, faltering to take frantic gasps of air.

"Ashley's... into a full blown seizure... Helen... in the OR... It's going to kill her." Nikola evidently needed no further explanation. He cursed in Serbian and set off at a run. John followed, uncaring that he'd run half the length of Helen's Sanctuary already.

"Another 10. Take her up to 30mg." As much as Magnus dared use on a human, what Ashley was becoming. And it was killing her. Both of them. If Magnus lost Ashley... she couldn't... she lost everyone... Barney, James, Nigel, her father, John, Ashley. She was alone. Utterly alone. Everyone died around her. She lived on. She'd lost enough patients on the table, her own failures, weaknesses, to know what the heart rate, past 210, and the blood pressure, 90/60 and still falling, had to mean. She was dying. Her child was dying in front of her. Helen felt tears in her eyes. Tears of blood. She was bleeding through the mask, bleeding through Doctor Magnus. They were both dying

"Magnus," Bigfoot's harsh voice. "This isn't working. We need another option

"We don't have one." Helen's choked, strangled yell filled the cold, sterile room. Her tears came faster now. "Don't do this Ashley. Don't leave me. Hold on. Please sweetheart, hold on."

"Helen." Nikola's voice. Him and John on the other side of the glass, panting.

"Heart rate, 219, rising. Blood pressure, 80/70, falling. Seizure, she's feverish, reflexes, no more." Bigfoot spared her from explaining.

"How long has she been like that?"

"Ten minutes?" John supplied. That little? How could it be?

"What have you tried so far?"

"Diazepam." Bigfoot spoke for her again. "30mg."

"Take a blood sample." Nikola instructed.

"You don't have time." John retorted. "It'll take too long to analyse..."

"Not now." Nikola cut him off. "I'll do it later." Bigfoot held Ashley's forearm still and looked at Helen. She didn't think. She was past thinking. She grabbed another syringe and filled it with Ashley's blood. "Now double the sedative." Was Nikola mad?

"I can't." She could barely breathe. "I don't dare go above 30. She's..."

"Helen, she took five tranq darts without breaking step. Immunity like that's not just going to disappear."

"Helen, please." John's voice, gentler. "The sedative is less likely to kill her than the seizure."

Helen looked down momentarily. She was choosing the means of Ashley's death. How? She reached for the diazepam. John was right. Her chances were better this way. A full 30mg. All she dared use on a human. She slid the needle into Ashley's vein, Bigfoot still holding her steady.

"I'm sorry Ashley." She breathed. "I'm so sorry." How long until the diazepam took effect? How long until she knew if she'd made the right decision?

Ashley's twitches were growing weaker, more intermittent. Please, please let it be working.

"Is she..." Henry's voice.

"No." John's. Helen looked up. John, Henry, Will, Kate, Nikola on the far side of the glass, watching her and Bigfoot.

"Helen, what's going on? I can't see from here." Nikola called through the glass. Bigfoot answered for her. She couldn't have.

"Seizure is stopping." He looked at the monitor. "BP still at78/67. Heart rate, 221 and staying there."

"So she's coming through?" The frightened hope on Henry's face was almost unbearable. John shook his head.

"Her pulse and blood pressure are still a long way from normal. There's no way to know yet."

Helen had no measure of time as she stood there, watching Ashley who no longer convulsed, who wasn't gasping or breathing normally. She stood on a knife edge. Ashley was no longer visably slipping away, but neither was she returning. No one moved. No one spoke.

Until the monitor screamed.

**Predictions? Criticism? Reviews?**

**By the way, someone once told me a radio can't swear, so I'm spelling this out. By the `monitor screamed`, I mean that single, long beep, indicative of heart failure in the patient.**


	11. Unidecimo

**By the way, operating room (OR) is a synonym for operating theatre, just in case that's an English quirk and to check isn't just to look over something in England, it's also to restrain.**

Monster

One high, tearing knell. Helen froze, the screaming building. It tore into her body, her mind, her soul. One long scream of endless, insurmountable agony.

"V. Fib. Charge the paddles to 200." Her body acted almost of its own accord. Her mind still lost in its own, screaming torture. Bigfoot was ahead of her, breathing hard as he flicked switches on the defibrillator. No. Oh, God, no. Helen's hands scrabbled for the adrenaline she kept by the defibrillator and stabbed it into her daughter's chest. Nothing. The monitor still screamed. Her heart still wasn't beating, she was losing her. "Ashley, come on. Don't do this." Bigfoot handed her the paddles. He pulled the black cloth away from Ashley's waist and stepped back. Magnus slammed the paddles into Ashley. Her lifeless body jerked. The monitor still screamed.

"Ashley, no. Please. Don't." Magnus had to focus. If she lost control, Ashley would die. She couldn't... "300" Bigfoot reset the paddles. Helen could barely breathe. She could feel the liquid on her face, tears. She couldn't lose. She couldn't lose Ashley again. Not now. She'd... She had to save her. "Clear." Ashley jerked.

Steady beeping. Magnus turned to the monitor, drawing a shuddering breath.

"Heart rate, 62 and steady. BP, 89/76, climbing." She'd done it. Ashley had done it. She'd come back from the twilight zone, from the edge of the abyss. Magnus sighed audibly, feeling herself shaking.

"Mum." Magnus spun around. Ashley's eyes were open. She was conscious.

"I'm here sweetheart. It's alright. It's alright now."

"Mum, the Cabal. They... did something to me." Ashley's voice was halting, weak. Her eyes flickered and closed. Helen felt her legs give way under her. Ashley. She was alive. A strong hand caught her arm and lowered her to the floor. She heard men's voices, but they were distant, unimportant. Ashley was alive.

* * *

"300" John turned and strode for the door. He couldn't just watch any longer. He couldn't leave his daughter and Helen in there. Helen was barely composed for fear, understandably, and he'd been a qualified doctor longer than she had; he could help their daughter, the daughter he'd been denied the chance to know by the thing inside him. "Clear." He could hear Helen's desperation, her fear, her torment. His hand met the door. The sounds changed. Heartbeat, echoed by the monitor. Ashley had a heartbeat. John looked back to hear that manservant say,

"Heart rate, 62 and steady. BP, 89/76, climbing." He hardly dared believe it. He had to see for himself. He wrenched the door open and almost ran into the adjoining corridor. Nikola was behind him. John shouldered the door of the OR and froze in the doorway. Helen was standing over Ashley, looking down at her, shaking. As John watched, her legs buckled under her. He darted forwards, grasping her arm as she fell. He lowered her to the floor. She was breathing at least. Ashley. He could leave Helen for a moment. He wasn't yet willing to trust that Ashley was stable. A stethoscope hung from a shelf. Helen's probably.

"I'm taking the blood to analyse now." Nikola said as John slid the ends of the stethoscope into his ears.

"She's breathing well." The abnormal grunted. John didn't reply at once. He laid the stethoscope to Ashley's chest. He froze, listening. Strong, steady, regular. Words he'd associate with her heart beat, not with the heart beat of someone who'd just come that close to death. This wasn't normal. What about the situation was? The patient had been conceived in 1888, born in _19_8-something, both her parents were alive and over 150 years of age, she was currently being tended by some sort of giant ape and a serial killer and a vampire had just gone to analyse her blood.

"She seems to be out of danger for now." It felt strange to speak to something so blatantly not human as if it were. It gave a half-voiced grunt in response.

John crouched down again. Helen was still lying on her side, her gasping a little more under control. Her eyes slid into focus. She began to push herself up on shaking arms.

"No, Helen." He said softly, taking her by the shoulders and laying her back on the floor, then withdrawing his hands at once. "Stay where you are for a moment." She didn't fight, just looked dazedly back at him and breathed,

"She's alive John."

"Yes, she is." He could feel his own relief flooding him. He cared for Ashley more than he could justify, even to himself. She'd been raised hidden from him out of justified fear, but she was his flesh and blood. Nothing could ever change that. She was his child. His and Helen's. Ashley was the only good she'd had from him. If she died, he'd have brought Helen nothing but pain. There had been one or two other women over the years, but none he'd felt this strongly about, none he'd been able to shield from the beast. None who captured his mind with one glance of sharp, azure eyes. He could think of little else while he was with her. All this passed John's mind in the time it took for him to reach for Helen's wrist and find her pulse.

Fast, but strong and slowing. Shock. He doubted that anything really threatened her health. This had to be shock. After a moment, she pulled her wrist free of his and made to sit up again. She seemed stronger now. He didn't stop her.

"I'm alright John." She attempted a reassuring smile. "Ashley..."

"Stable." A grunt from above. Helen nodded

"Let's get her to the infirmary." She got to her feet. "She's not a danger to anyone right now. I doubt even if that woman were to walk in here..."

"Unlikely." John muttered. He'd found her in Paris. He still remembered the feel of her blood, the smell of her fear. He'd felt no remorse for that murder. It had been retribution. She'd killed his daughter, he'd killed her. He didn't care how much or little the demon had been involved.

Helen ignored him. She wasn't yet over the shock, but near enough. She was breathing better, though there was something still very wrong with her. She and the manservant set about moving Ashley. They left quickly, barely needing to speak. They were so attuned to each other that one glance was an instruction. There had been a time when he and Helen would work in the lab like that, only speaking in half-sentences, incomprehensible to anyone else, but understanding, not knowing how. John remained in the theatre, alone, for some time, remembering.

Eventually returning to the present, John set off to look for Nikola. He felt useless. There had to be something he could do, even if it was just keeping an eye on Nikola.

He had some idea where he was going. He was fairly confident that Nikola would be in the main lab. He'd find his way to that.

Footsteps. Coming towards him. Kate Freelander, the ex-cabal mercenary, rounded the corner, trachea's ridges visible through her skin. He could sense her pulsing jugular just below the surface. He wanted to feel it. He wanted to see her blood in the light. He wanted to kill her. He inhaled slowly. No. He couldn't. She was part of Helen's staff now. How had the monster inside him got so strong? It had only been a week since he'd killed. He turned to the wall, breathing hard, waiting for her to pass. The footsteps stopped. She was playing into his hands. It would be so easy. Oh, God, he wanted her blood. He wanted so badly to kill her.

"What the hec are you doing?" She asked suspiciously. He drew another slow, shuddering breath, fighting the rising bloodlust, rising adrenaline, before growling,

"Get away from me."

"Dude, I live here. If you don't..." He turned to face her, had taken a pace towards her, before he made himself stop.

"You. Have. No. Idea. How much I want to kill you." Fear. That was the first thing he saw in her eyes. It was a drug to the monster. It took every ounce of restraint he had not to charge her. Then she checked her fear, raising her fists (one out of a sling), clenching her jaw. He breathed again.

"Well, come and have a go." She spat, rising onto the balls of her feet. He could see her pulse, her heart forcing blood through its chambers; right atrium, right ventricle, pulmonary artery, heaving lungs, pulmonary vein, left atrium, left ventricle, flooding to tense muscles, then pouring back in flight to her core. That was the blood he would strike for. No. "Come on." She repeated. "I'm ready." Oh, she was brave. That must be what Helen saw in her. Most of his victims, the whores, screamed, pleaded, begged. That incensed the monster. But this defiance... It unsettled it. Weakness.

Every fibre in his body resisted. John turned back to the wall. Please, please let her go now. He couldn't keep this up. Footsteps. Slow, quiet. Getting faster, harder. She was running. He had to chase her down. He just had to.

**I've been slow last few days, haven't I? Next week will be worse. Sorry.**


	12. Duodecimo

**Took me long enough. I've had a busy week.**

Monster

The footsteps were distant now, dying. John ran, flooded with the wild rage, excitement that preceded a kill. His footfalls drowned hers. He halted sharply.

Three corridors. Which way had she gone? He listened. No sound but his own rushing blood. He'd lost her. Victory. Defeat. He felt crushed, weak, but he'd outwitted the thing inside him. He'd never get her now. The knowledge that he was still... John Druitt, the young man who'd let himself be injected with vampire blood more than a century ago, Helen's lover, Ashley's father... gave him will to fight the monster, the monster that had made him Jack the Ripper, the Leather Apron, the Whitechapel Murderer. He was learning to separate its thoughts from his own. It made it easier to fight, but it was still hard. Often too hard.

0o0o0o0

Kate rolled under Steve's bed and froze, trying not to pant. Christ, she was scared. She thought she'd heard him chasing her, but she wasn't sure. Either way, she didn't dare move yet. She was unarmed. God, that had been stupid. Yes, she was in the Sanctuary and she usually felt safe there, but so were a vampire and a serial killer. She'd gotten soft working for Magnus.

It was a long time that Kate lay there. The only sound was the occasional hiss of concentration from Steve when his Kenken proved a challenge. Eventually, slinking like a cat, she made a break for the armoury, mouth still dry with fear. If he came back for her, she'd be ready.

0o0o0o0

"Do you remember, summer 2004, about a week after you finished school and joined the staff full time? You'd been nagging me for months to let you do something dangerous. I might not have yielded then if Bigfoot hadn't broken his leg chasing that Ursula Minoris Spiritus, 80s bear you called her, or if Barney hadn't had flu or Theresa hadn't been in Japan. I hated to put you in that sort of danger, but I needed you then in a way I hadn't before, as a reliable fighter. The only purpose those Romanian boys served in the end was to confuse the werewolves, and, admittedly, one of them did give us something interesting to look at. I forget who you said he looked like, but I'll admit it, he was a very attractive young man. You're never going to let me, or anyone else forget I said that.

I was so proud of you then Ashley. Do you remember how one of the locals behaved? He was so... overconfident while we were setting up. You said he'd panic when the sun went down. How right you were. He screamed like a schoolgirl on a ghost train¸ you said. You were the opposite. You were so mature, so controlled. You were excited about the mission, but you never let that get in your way. You never lost sight of the objectives, you were confident, you certainly looked a lot calmer than I felt. Every one of those werewolves was a man-killer. It terrified me to have you that close to them. It didn't worry you though, did it? To watch you fight that night Ashley, no one would guess you'd never done anything approaching that scale.

We did things together that most people couldn't dream of. You've seem werewolves, Quetzelcotli, Lamaran cattle, you've swum with a mermaid. And you saw the world doing it. You've seen more in twenty four years than most people do in fifty. England, Morocco, the Pyramids at Giza, the Sphinx (chasing a real one), the Mayan cities, India, Japan, Russia, the Barrier Reef, Paris, Washington, Buenos Aires, Rome..." Magnus's hands tightened around Ashley's. That memory was tortuous. As Magnus fell silent, the only sound was the monitor's steady beeping. 60 per minute. Blood pressure118/80. She'd been this way for four hours, perfectly stable, enough brain activity for her only to be sleeping. But she wouldn't wake.

Magnus swallowed hard, forcing back tears. The liquid burned her dry throat. She'd been talking more or less nonstop since they'd brought Ashley into the infirmary four hours before. It had only been four hours. There was still a good chance that Ashley would wake up of her own accord. She had to believe it.

"If I have one regret about how I raised you Ashley, just one, that's it: That I wasn't honest with you about your father from the start. It hurt you when you found out but... you weren't the only one who got hurt. I couldn't bear to see you that distant, that wounded. And I knew that it was my fault, inescapably and utterly my fault. If I'd just told you when you were young... It would have hurt me, but not you. That's what matters. I should have known that."

"Magnus?" She looked up sharply, releasing Ashley's hand. Will stood in the doorway, watching her. She swallowed hard again and met his gaze.

"Will?" He drew up a second chair and sat down next to her.

"How is she?" His eyes flicked to Ashley's tranquil face.

"Stable." Magnus replied quickly, not meeting his eyes. He nodded.

"Look, Tesla sent me down here to tell you he's got something he wants you to see, and that he wants a blood sample from Ashley." Magnus drew a breath, then answered,

"Please tell Nikola that he's welcome to another blood sample, but I am staying here. I won't leave Ashley." Magnus got to her feet and fetched a syringe.

"OK." Will's tone made it quite clear that he didn't want to argue with her. Magnus was glad of that. She reached for Ashley's forearm, compressed the vein for a few seconds, then slid the bright metal into Ashley's skin. The syringe's cavity began to fill with crimson blood. To look at Ashley, no one would guess that she wasn't just a normal human girl, sleeping. Magnus withdrew the syringe, handed it to Will.

"Tell Nikola to put any other requests to me. I'm likely to be reasonable."

"He's been helping himself to the wine."

"Of course he has." Magnus sat down again.

Will didn't move. He drew a deep breath, then began,

"Magnus, you must be going through hell right now. What you've had to deal with over the past few days is..."

"You've no idea." She hadn't meant to speak aloud. She looked away quickly, embarrassed. She hadn't realised her guard was that far down. There was an uncomfortable pause.

"I guess I don't." She felt his hand on her forearm. He moved his chair closer and sat down. "Look, all I'm saying is that if you wanna talk or just don't want to be on your own for a while, then we're all her. Henry, Kate, me, the Big Guy. You don't have to do this alone. Just... remember that, OK?" Magnus nodded once, then turned to face him, feeling tears burn her eyes. Then she crumpled, shuddering in suppressed anguish. Will didn't speak. He pulled her into his arms and held her there. She stayed still, fighting back threatening sobs. She had to stay strong.

Magnus drew away. Will left his hand on her shoulder.

"Look, going by what Tesla said, the mutations you did in the 1880s weren't exactly quick."

"Or painless" Magnus turned her eyes back to Ashley

"Magnus, it's gonna take time for her to come round." Will got to his feet, picked up the blood sample and left.

**One. I defend this passage. It is not OOC for Magnus. She has been and is going through hell. No one gets that close to losing a child without breaking down here and there, no matter who or what she is. She still doesn't know if Ashley will survive. We all saw what this did to her in End of Nights and Eulogy.**

**Two. Please don't say that's shippy. It's not. Magnus is in a bad way and in need of a cry. Will looks after people in pain. That's what he does. He knows how to deal with this and he knows that Magnus's inevitable endeavours to keep it all inside are not going to do her any good.**


	13. Tertio decimo

**Quicker than I expected this time. I have been at this for 60 days exactly. If you have been with me all the way, thank you. **

Monster

John stood in the main lab, eyes on the screen, watching the infirmary. The only reason that he wasn't there with Helen was that he knew she didn't want him there. After what he'd almost done to Miss Freelander, he couldn't blame her. He was a menace to everyone around him. He felt relatively safe with Nikola and Mr. Foss. He felt no inclination to hurt Mr. Foss and he knew he wouldn't be able to do Nikola permanent damage however hard he tried.

It could well be several more days before anyone had more than a half chance of guessing whether Ashley would live or die. The source blood had been like that. He'd been so afraid then. Not for his own life when his turn came, but for Helen's. He'd been so afraid she'd die, that he'd lose her to their insatiable thirst for discovery. It hadn't just been the first hour, of her screaming, once begging for death; chloroform had done nothing to help her. The silent hours that had followed had been worse. She'd barely breathed, her pulse had been barely detectable. John had seen children with scarlet fever look like that in their last hours, when death was like a physical presence in the room. Helen had had no rash, she'd been white as virgin snow, but otherwise, there was barely a hair's breadth between them. Nothing he'd done had helped her. He'd felt so powerless, as he had with Ashley, as Helen must have. He couldn't help either of them

"Here's the blood." Doctor Zimmerman walked in and held a syringe out to Nikola. Nikola gave him a withering look.

"And Helen?"

"Is staying with Ashley." Doctor Zimmerman replied calmly.

"Look..."

"She's not going anywhere." He cut across Nikola firmly.

"Fine." The vampire growled. "You, wolf boy." He clicked his fingers.

"What Dracula?" Mr. Foss replied coolly.

"Very funny. Get this stuff on the main computer onto your mobile screen."

"What?" Mr. Foss walked over.

"This. When you transform, does all the fur end up in your head?"

"Do you want my help or not?"

"Not so much want as need."

"Well then, plug that in there, click there, there, enter for every screen you want."

"Why do I put up with you?"

"Maybe 'cause I live here."

"You want Helen looking after you."

"S'cuse me? You've come running to Magnus for help more than once: When you `died` in the 40s, the catacombs..."

"How do you know about that?" Nikola started. Mr. Foss was sober at once.

"Ash. She was freaked when she got back, wouldn't say why. She did say what you'd been up to, or part of it. She barely said a word for days. Nor did Magnus. Whatever you did that she didn't tell me was bad."

John looked down. Nikola was taking the boy's blame for his doing. At the time, he hadn't spared a thought for how his actions would affect Ashley's relationship with Helen. How could he have been so stupid? Of course Ashley would have been hurt to discover her parentage. He couldn't blame her. It had probably been the worse for who had told her, him, not Helen.

Mr. Foss continued to bicker with Nikola for several minutes, only ceasing when Nikola left for the infirmary, leaving John with a disgruntled technician and Doctor Zimmerman's accusatory stare.

0o0o0o0

"I denied you the chance of a normal life. I stole that from you before you were born. What the teachers must have thought of the pictures you drew I have no idea. Your reports invariably included the phrase `active imagination`. I don't know how I thought you could ever be normal. Now I wonder if the only reason you chose my life is that you had no choice. I forced you into this and it's done this to you." Ashley stirred. Magnus froze. "Ashley?" She laid a hand against Ashley's neck, seeking for herself the firm, steady pulse. "Ashley? Sweetheart, can you hear me?" Ashley sighed and moved her neck into Magnus's hand. Hope. Staggering, welcome hope rose in Magnus like the flood waters of the Nile. "Come on Ashley. That's it. Don't give up" Ashley's eyes flickered open blearily.

"Mum?" Her voice was faint, hoarse.

"Ashley." Magnus felt her face split into a euphoric smile. Ashley's blue eyes were dull, barely focused, but she didn't care. Ashley recognised her, knew who she was. The euphoria spread through her like the sun's warmth. Ashley emitted a soft moan of pain. "Ashley, where are you hurt?"

"Kinda everywhere." She replied quietly. "Mum, I don't know what they did to me." Magnus nodded once and drew breath, but Ashley plunged on. "They gave me something. It's scaring the hell out of me. Find out what they did." Ashley tensed and moaned again. "Whatever it is, it hurts." Magnus was lost for words. Ashley didn't remember. She had no idea what she'd done, what had been done to her. Ashley sighed in pain again as her eyes flickered shut.

"Ashley?" Magnus could hear the urgency in her own voice. "Ashley?" It was futile. Magnus fell silent, forcing back the sense of loss. Ashley remained sentient, had retained her sense of self. Her body was behaving as if it were recovering from trauma, which it was. She would come to again, eventually. Yes, Nikola's drug had put Ashley in agony, but it had done what Magnus had yearned for. Ashley knew who she was. Her mind was back. Ashley was back and she was alive. Magnus hadn't dared dream of half that four days before. She sighed and sat back, feeling the faintness return. Self inflicted. She didn't bother to bring her head lower than her heart. She'd been without food or rest for four days. She couldn't have faced either. Not while Ashley was in any danger.

"Why, hello down here." Nikola's cool, sarcastic tones made Magnus look up sharply. Her head swam. She blinked hard. Nikola hovered on the threshold. "Is she...?"

"She's unconscious. And if she weren't she'd struggle to do you permanent damage." Nikola advanced and seated himself in Will's vacated chair.

"Well, following your refusal to come and look at my work," Nikola began, "I decided it would be worth my time to come and show you." He levelled the touch screen that had been under his arm. "Firstly, cell cultures. Mine." He indicated a group of sleek, opaque cells at one end of the screen. "Hers a year ago." Normal human cells at the other. "Hers three days ago." Cells indistinguishable from Nikola's. "Now this is where it gets interesting. This is her four hours ago." What on earth? She could barely believe these cells had come from the same specimen. Some were human, some vampiric, some stranded in grotesque interim. No wonder it had nearly killed Ashley. "And her just now." Almost all the cells looked human.

"So it's working." Magnus felt the euphoria surge at the confirmation of what she'd just seen. Ashley was coming back.

"So far as I said it would."Nikola replied. "Yes, the vampiric traits are receding (which surprises me, I thought they'd be source blood derived), but look at this." The screen displayed three DNA breakdowns. "John's. Hers three days ago. Hers now." Nikola indicated each in turn. "22nd, 8th and 14th chromosomes display these markers" He indicated them. "In all three samples. John picked these up in '86, and there's no sign of their fading in her."

"Teleport." Magnus concluded. "She'll likely retain that ability." It hardly mattered, so long as she understood the rules, she'd be safe.

"Yes." Nikola replied. "As for the state of her mind, there's no way to tell until she wakes up."

"She did wake up." Magnus turned her eyes back to Ashley.

"How did..."

"She was Ashley." Magnus cut across Nikola. "She knew who she was, who I was..." She tailed off. But Ashley hadn't remembered. Blessing or curse?

"Well, if you'll excuse me," Nikola got to his feet. "I've got work to do."

0o0o0o0

**By the way, someone probably knows, but can anyone tell me what my chapter names are?**


	14. Quatro decimo

**Short one, I know. I'm trying to arrange my chapter breaks logically. I don't draft this in chapters. I just write.**

Monster

"That Cethydral, one of the first abnormals you helped bring in, that one we found in Boston, he's died. It's been six months now. It was just old age, so far as I can tell. I couldn't find..." Footsteps. Magnus fell silent abruptly. She looked up.

"Magnus?"

"Will." She managed a fleeting smile. "Henry." They walked in, Henry half a pace behind Will, who took his original seat while Henry fetched another.

"We just came down to see how you and Ashley were" Will said as Henry sat down on Ashley's other side. "Tesla said she'd been conscious."

" She has." Magnus affirmed quickly. Will sat silently, waiting for her to continue. "She knew who I was, who she was; she was Ashley." A wide euphoric grin split across Henry's face.

"She's back then?" He concluded uncertainly. Will's smile was more guarded. He sensed that wasn't it.

"And she doesn't remember the past eight months," She continued, breaking eye contact. "Which is probably a good thing."

"Hang on." Will's tone frightened her. "What do you mean `she doesn't remember`." Magnus drew a calming breath.

"She keeps saying that the Cabal did something to her, but she doesn't know what. It looks like she doesn't remember anything past John bringing you" she glanced at Henry "and her back after you'd tried to infiltrate the Cabal." Henry dipped his head, eyes filling with pain.

"S'why I've always thought this whole stupid thing was my fault."

"Henry..." Magnus began, but he cut across her.

"I was with her Doc. We were in there together. There's gotta be something I could have done. How many people died because I didn't do anything to..."

"Henry." Magnus intervened more forcefully this time. "I let you go. You came to me for permission, I gave it." Magnus's voice somehow remained level. There was no hint of how the decision had tormented her, waking or sleeping, she saw it, saw what could have been.

"Magnus, you said she didn't remember anything after getting back from that." Will changed the subject abruptly. "I know this isn't a textbook case, but it's beginning to look a bit like Global Transient Amnesia."

"Woah, English." Henry cut in. "Plain layman's English."

"A... sort of a blackout. A block of time from which she can't remember anything. If it was normal Global Transient Amnesia, she'd have remembered her name and everything during the `blackout`, and it lasted more than 24 hours, and she was able to re-learn stuff. If it is like Global Transient Amnesia, she could well remember on her own eventually." Magnus bowed her head. She didn't want Ashley to have to deal with that. She couldn't put her through that. "If we tell her, it will accelerate the process."

"The question is," Magnus said, not meeting anyone's eyes¸ "should we?"

"Don't play the fool Helen." The deep, British accent from the doorway made all three of them start.

"How long have you been standing there?" Magnus shot at John, suddenly defensive.

"Long enough to understand what's going on. She's not a child anymore Helen. She's got a right to know what she's done, or at the very least what her body's been used for."

"Would you subject anyone to that?" Magnus snapped. "Just think what it would do to nay recovery she could have."

"Magnus," Will's calm tone angered her as much as John's dominance, "chances are, she'll find out for herself one way or another. I know you want to protect her and that's understandable, but you can't do it forever. The last time you tried, you both ended up hurt. You're laying yourself open for it to happen again if you try and hide all this. Every moment you do, she has to deal with the deceit on top of everything else."

"_What hurt wasn't the news, it was that it didn't come from you."_ Magnus heard Ashley's words as if she'd spoken them again. She lowered her head.

"_If I've got one regret Ashley, just one, that's it: That I wasn't honest with you about your father from the start."_

She'd meant it. She really had, but this... This was different. "How?" Asked a cold voice in her head. "How is it different?" Because... Because... It just was. That was feeble and she knew it.

"Magnus," Will laid a hand on her arm. She exhaled softly, defeated."You'd only be delaying the inevitable."

"I know." It was all she could do to keep her voice from cracking.

"You're doing the right thing Magnus. It'll hurt, but in the long run, you won't regret it. It'll be OK."

0o0o0o0

She was alone with Ashley again, had been for nearly twelve hours. Magnus glanced out of the windows to the East. A pale grey line between building foreshadowed dawn. It was probably about five in the morning. There'd been no change in Ashley. Nikola had sent someone down for a blood sample every couple of hours¸ but no one stayed long now. She'd rather have this time alone, to brace herself.

She was scared. She was so scared. She could stand and stare out a Lakshir, but she couldn't face telling her own daughter the truth. Coward. That's what she was. She was afraid of her own child.

"Doc?" Magnus looked round sharply

"Henry." He approached his seat nervously. "Nikola sent you for more blood?"

"Um... actually no." He sat down. "He says he'll go with every six hours now she's stabilizing."

"Good" Magnus waited for Henry to give the reason for his visit. It seemed to take him a minute to summon the courage.

"Yeah. I... I guess I'm here 'cause I'm worried. We all are."

"Well, if Ashley's stabilizing as..."

"No, Doc. Not about Ash. About you." Magnus looked at him sharply, taken aback. "We all are. You haven't eaten or slept in what? Five days? I know you're not a normal human, but still, it can't be doing you any good. Sooner or later, it's gonna catch up with you."

"Henry, I'm fine." He shook his head.

"Big guy knows you to well. He says five days is about your limit. After that, you can't really focus, you can't think straight. I know I'm not Will, but I'm guessing you wanna be able to think straight when..."

Magnus couldn't argue with that, so changed tack.

"I can't just leave her here. What if she wakes up on her own?"

"I'll stay with her Doc. It's OK. You said she was really Ash again, right?" Magnus nodded. "I'll be fine then. Please, just take a few hours out and get some rest."

"Do you think I can just leave this here?" Magnus asked, a little more aggressively than she'd meant to.

"No, but... come on Doc. Try at least. You could cheat and drug yourself out."

"I'd rather not."

"At least give yourself two hours rest even if you can't sleep." Magnus lowered her head. Yes, she was exhausted. But she couldn't bear to let Ashley out of her sight. She trusted Henry though. And, she felt treacherous for even admitting it, even to herself, a part of her wanted to get away for a while, to prepare herself. She sighed.

"Two hours." She got up.

"Six." He replied firmly.

"Two." She said just as firmly.

"Five." He conceded.

"Two."

"Oh, come on Doc. I'm haggling properly here."

"It's not open to negotiation Henry. And if there's any change in her condition whatsoever..."

"I'll send Kate if you agree to go for six hours."

"I won't go at all them." Magnus sat down again.

"Fine." Henry said quickly. "You can't tell the Big Guy I didn't try." Magnus got up and walked away again, cursing herself silently.

**By the way, a lot of people got it right. The chapters are latin for first, second, third, fourth, fifth (if that word makes your spine tingle, you're a gateie).**


	15. Quinto decimo

**Had to do this sequence. I just love Henry too much. There is mild language in this chapter, but no worse than the show.**

Monster

Henry sat there for a while in silence, listening to nothing, watching Ash.

"Doc was talking to you, wasn't she?" He said eventually. "So I guess that's what you're meant to do." Again the silence made him awkward. "Hell, what do you say to someone in a coma? In films and stuff it's always" He pushed his voice up an octave. "Oh, please, please come back to me (hero's name). I know I've always said I hated you, but I'm actually madly in love with you, etcetera." He coughed, looking around in case anyone had heard that. No one. "Talk about beating a stereotype, you're kicking the crap out of this one. 'S what you do though, isn't it? Kick the crap out of stuff. You were always the tough one, weren't you?

You'd kinda assume that the guy who's older would be tougher than the little girl. Gees. When did I last call you that? Definitely not for the last ten years. You could beat me up when you were fourteen. That was just insulting. You are three years younger than me, but you were doing all the dangerous field stuff five years before I was. I'm doing it now though. You saw the first one in that warehouse thing, where those reporters were following us, y'know, where one of them died. That was a screw up. I've been doing more since then, not just as tech support now. I'm kinda getting used to being something out of a horror movie now. They're never geeks though. I'll bet anybody half my budget that you will never find a geeky werewolf in a horror film.

Doc says you're like Druitt now. Not, like, psycho. Like, you can teleport, so now we're both mutants. That's half the staff here. You, me, Doc versus Will, Kate and the Big Guy, and that's if you don't count him. Doc says you shouldn't 'cause he was never meant to be anything other than a Sasquatch. I heard somewhere that you shouldn't because you're only a mutant if your genes are screwed and your parents' genes weren't.

Hang on; you shouldn't be a mutant then. Doc's definitely weird. But she said you'd been mutated, three times. Why do I even think about this stuff? It's making my head hurt, and I'm wrong anyway. You're a mutant if you're genes have changed, or if you're a new genetic strain or something like that.

You don't know Kate, do you? Once you'd thoroughly bruised each other a few times, I think you'd like her. She's like you. She's rough, she's happier fighting than thinking. She's not daft though.

You really should have seen your Mum when we caught her, Kate. She was Cabal then. We caught her and your Mum was trying to get her to tell us where you were. They say `don't get between a grizzly and her cubs`. Personally, I'd rather have been chased by a Grizzly than your Mum when she's like that. I've never seen her like that. She was like something out of the SHU. I was scared, and she didn't even shoot at me. She nearly shot Kate."

Ash stirred, drawing a slow, gentle breath. Henry froze for a heartbeat.

"Ash? Ash, can you hear me?" He laid a hand on hers. No response. He looked up at her monitor. Hang on, her BP had changed. Yeah, it had. Doc. Ash could be waking up. He reached for his radio.

"Kate?"

"Yeah, go ahead." She sounded glad to have something to do.

"Go get Magnus. Ash is waking up again."

"Where is she?"

"Her room, I think."

"Going."

"Give me that." Druitt's voice from somewhere not near Kate. Static, then. "What's her condition?" That voice gave him the creeps.

"Not really with it." He said, biting back the prickling sensation on the back of his neck. It meant more for him than most people. When he was angry or scared. That was what let the wolf out. "But kinda stirring. BP's changed."

"From what to what?" The precision of his voice was just spooky. He spoke too well, too clearly.

"110/80 to 120/81." Druitt turned the radio off. Henry turned back to Ash. "Ash? Ash, can you hear me?" Her eyes flickered open.

"Yeah." She said. It sounded like she was a kid being pulled out of bed again. "I hear you, Henry."

0o0o0o0

Kate walked up through the floors quickly. She knew where Magnus slept (if at all). She knew where she was going. She was also glad to get away from Druitt for a bit. He hadn't so much as looked at her since she'd arrived in the lab, armed now, but that changed nothing. She'd got the feeling she'd come very close to experiencing Jack the Ripper's MO first hand.

Ashley. She didn't know how she felt about that. Ashley'd cut her open twice and, of course, she was glad that Magnus was getting her kid back, but where would that leave her? From what Henry'd said, Ashley'd been a fighter, like Kate was. She'd be out in the wild again, freelance, like she'd always been. The past eight months had been too good to last. She should have known that. If Ashley came good, she'd go. There was nothing else to it. Yeah, the past few months had been good, but she'd always loved that freedom: go where you want when you want, take orders from the market.

Kate started. She'd rounded a corner and almost walked into Magnus.

"Kate. What's going on?"

"Ashley's waking up again." Magnus didn't wait for any other explanation. She ran like a Chebachara after a Tzizi past Kate, towards the infirmary. That summed it up alright.

0o0o0o0

"Still light." Ashley looked up at the window. "Can't have been out that long."

"Actually Ash," Henry replied, "you last woke up yesterday."

"What?" The Cabal must have hit her with something pretty strong. She didn't hurt in the same way now though. It was bearable now, like she was bruised all over. It had been way worse before. "Guess I feel better now."

"Good." The way he said it... He must have been really worried. What might they have done to him? If he was hurt, they'd pay, big time.

"You OK?"

"Me? I'm fine Ash." He sounded completely taken aback. She looked around again.

"Where's Mum?"

" Coming. She hasn't slept in five days, so the rest of us sent her to bed."

"Five days?" That didn't make any sense. "But she slept the night before she went after the blood. That's only two days." Henry shook his head. "Oh, you're kidding me." She flopped back against the bed, a little apprehensive now. "What the hell did they hit me with?" Henry shook his head again.

"Magnus will explain." His not giving her a straight answer seeded the beginnings of dread. If it had just been enough tranq to put out a Lamaran Bull, he'd have said it.

"Ashley?" That was Mum's voice, fast as the approaching footsteps. She must have been as worried as Henry.

0o0o0o0

John followed Helen towards the infirmary quickly and quietly. It wasn't until she was in the doorway that she heard him, sensed him. She turned. Her sharp, azure eyes met his, smouldering, ready to burst into the beautiful, terrible fire of her anger. She stared at him as a swan might stare at a rival before attacking. It was a challenge, a threat. In her eyes, he had no right to be there. In her eyes, he had no claim to Ashley, not now, not ever. In her eyes, he wasn't Ashley's father, had just been there when she was conceived, then become a murderer, the Leather Apron, Jack the Ripper. In her eyes, he'd sown his seed, then deserted her, and his child, forsaking his claims to Ashley, to both of them. In Helen's eyes, in Helen's blazing, sapphire eyes, he was not wanted or needed. He was resented, hated feared. Well founded to the last. Helen's emotions never were baseless. She was above that.

John turned and walked away, yielding to the stronger without a fight.

**People will argue with me about this paragraph. John is so hard to read, and so to write. We get nothing to go on. I just think he has to be done angstily, 120 years ago or not at all**


	16. Sexto decimo

**I feel obliged to repeat the language warning. I don't think it's realistic if I don't put the words in. They're not really bad, but now I'm wondering if I should change the rating of this to an M. Should I? Anyway, enough of that. Enjoy.**

Monster

Ashley watched as her Mum looked back at her formt he doorway, aggression running off her face. Was this confuse-the-hell-out-of-Ashley day?

"Ashley." That same, unnervingly cautious tone.

"Mum."

"I'll go back and keep an eye on Dracula." Henry got up and left. She was alone with her Mum now.

"Hey, did you get the source blood."

"Yes." Mum almost winced as she said it. What the hell?

"Well done?" When her Mum didn't reply, she pushed on. "You got the stuff out of a maze built by someone at least as clever as you so the vampire can work on a cure for the Lazarus virus."

"That's done."

"What?"

"Nikola synthesised an antivirus, which we've distributed." Mum spoke as if it was bad news.

"Good? All the abnormals, including you, aren't gonna die a horrible death. That's good, right?" Mum nodded mutely. She still hadn't sat down. Hang on. Synthesising an antivirus usually took weeks, or was that a vaccine? "How long have I been in here?"

"You've been here, the infirmary for thirty-five hours." She still sounded as if she was breaking bad news.

"That's fast!"

"What?"

"Synthesising an antivirus, I didn't know it could be done that fast." Mum drew a deep breath.

"It took Nikola three weeks."

"Whoa! Math check: I've been here less than two days, how long was I stuck in the Cabal place with Henry? I swear it was like, day, day and a half. No way it was weeks." What the hell had they done to her? She was properly scared now.

"It wasn't. You were there forty-eight hours." Ashley sat up.

"Then how the hell did the vampire manage three weeks? You left after us. Unless we've gone to the next sci-fi level and started doing time travel..." She tailed off. Her Mum shook her head, eyes shining now. This had to be bad. Really bad. She'd only ever known her Dad scare her Mum before, really scare her, like this. "What else has happened Mum? Tell me." Mum bowed her head momentarily, hands clasped across her abdomen, she was next to wringing them. She drew a shaking breath. She was about to cry. Oh, crap this was gonna be bad. "Mum?"

"You and Henry attacked the Cabal head quarters on October the fourth." She looked up. "It's now the thirtieth of May."

0o0o0o0

She had to do it. And she had to do it now. There was no point in clutching at straws; there was nothing she could do. The salt was spilled. Ashley had started to ask and wouldn't stop until she had the answers.

"Mum?" She was worrying Ashley more, she couldn't hide her fear, she wasn't trying. She drew a slow breath in an effort to calm herself, wondering how to approach this. She'd hurt Ashley whatever she did, but if there was any way to soften the blows, she'd try.

"You and Henry attacked the Cabal head quarters on October the fourth." She looked up at Ashley's frightened, confused face, feeling tears in her eyes. "It's now the thirtieth of May." Ashley's confusion became outright incomprehension.

"I've been in a coma for eight months? I can't have been. I feel strong... I... The last thing I remember is Dad pulling us out of there, and that can't have been eight days ago yet."

"You weren't comatose all that time, Ashley." Magnus paused. "Sweetheart, whatever else I may tell you, just remember this. You never harmed anyone you really cared about; not Henry, not Bigfoot, not me..." She tailed off. Ashley's breathing was faster now. She was terrified.

"What did I do?" She spoke through gritted teeth, but still so forcefully. She thought she wanted to know, whatever it was. But would she? Magnus had no choice.

"For the most part, Ashley, it's not so much what you did as what was done to you." She could feel Ashley staring at her. She must be terrified. "When your father brought you back here, the Cabal had already changed you in some ways. For one, your father's ability."

"No, Mum, you know I can't do that." Magnus glanced quickly at Ashley, then pushed on.

"They'd also gained control of your mind."

"What?" Dear God, she couldn't do this.

"You just disappeared, Ashley, taking the source blood with you. We had no idea if you were dead or alive. We spent the next six weeks looking for a way into the Cabal."

"Mum, I'm kinda waiting for you to tell me this is the worst joke in the history of the world." Magnus didn't look at Ashley. She could already see the genuine terror, as prevalent on her face as in her voice. Magnus shook her head a little and pressed on, the first tear escaping her left eye.

"Ashley, what I need you to keep sight of here is the fact that you can only be held responsible for one action since you took the source blood; refusing to kill me."

"How?" Ashley was crying now. Magnus could hear it. She hadn't seen Ashley cry for years, except when... Burning.

"They mutated you further, then copied your genetic template onto five other humans who'd been part of an experiment some twenty-five years ago which removed all abnormalities from their genetic makeup. So they took on your mutations."

"Mum..." Ashley's voice shook.

"Just remember what I told you at the start." Magnus felt her own voice crack. This was the worst of it, in Ashley's eyes. She couldn't do this. "The Cabal set the six of you on the Sanctuaries..."

"What?" Magnus ignored Ashley's outburst. She was so close to losing courage; she didn't dare falter. Every word was torment, but she had to go on. But she couldn't.

"You attacked critical systems, EM shields mostly, then any defenders, anything else you came across. All six of you regenerated unbelievably fast. I say `you`." Magnus faltered a little. "`Your bodies` would be more accurate. We had no way of stopping you until this Sanctuary alone was intact. Nikola created a radiation weapon capable of... of killing you. I... I used it on four of you before we came face to face, you and I." Magnus lifted one hand to dab ineffectually at the tears now streaming down her face.

"This is a dream." Ashley hissed shakily. "This is a stupid, crappy dream. I'm gonna wake up and there'll be no Lazarus virus, no mutations, no nothing." Magnus shook her head.

"I'm so sorry Ashley. I truly am." Her voice shook, was faint with tears. "Each of us had the means to kill the other, but we couldn't. After all they'd done to you Ashley, all they'd made you endure, you still wouldn't do what they most wanted done; kill the head of the network. You had the strength to resist them, after all that. None of the others hesitated at all. They just killed.

If it hadn't been for one of the others, we could well have found a way to heal you then, but..." Magnus stopped. It was getting harder to speak through her tears. How many times had this moment appeared in dreams? How many times had her own screams woken her? "The last one arrived. You held her back from me, then..." Magnus gasped in pain. This was too much, for her and for Ashley. She couldn't do it. "You teleported into the EM shield. It should have killed you. I... You..." Magnus yielded. She couldn't go on. For the first time since she'd started her narrative, she looked at her daughter.

Ashley was curled in a ball, head on her knees, drawn into her chest, trying to protect herself, the gesture of the broken. She'd done this.

Magnus felt her tears redouble as she approached Ashley. She sat down on the edge of the bed. She put her arms around Ashley. Ashley didn't yield to the embrace, she stayed stiff, though her body shook, pushing her mother away. Magnus raised one hand to stroke the side of Ashley's face.

"Ashley, you did more than I could ever have asked of you, than anyone could. You laid down your life to save me. No matter what I do, I can never, ever repay that. But you're back. And that's what matters. Nothing else does. Nothing in this world."

**Fair warning, posting of this fic is about to get slower. Much slower. It's out of my hands I'm afraid.**


	17. Septimo decimo

**For reference, firefox is the Siberian name for an aurora. I looked it up. **

Monster

"Any progress?" Will spoke first as the door to Magnus office opened and Magnus walked in, looking harried, tired and above all distressed. She hadn't eaten since they'd brought Ashley in, had barely slept. She was just getting worse. It wouldn't be many days before she collapsed, he'd seen her do it before, in '68. Then at least he'd be able to force her to eat and rest. The rest of the room had looked up now, not just him and Will, but Henry, Tesla and Druitt. Those two smelt of danger. They made his hair stand up. He'd learned that his instincts were good. Druitt and Tesla were danger, but Magnus was letting them stay, so he'd put up with them.

Magnus shook her head.

"It's been two days and she still won't let me get near her. And she's still refusing food."

He grunted. "She's not the only one." He fixed Magnus with an accusatory stare. Hypocrite. She hadn't eaten since they'd brought Ashley in, hadn't drunk much either.

"I'm fine." Magnus snapped.

"It's been a week."

"I'm fine." She repeated.

"Hoh." He snorted his disbelief. "Three days, four at most, before you collapse." He began to shuffle away, but he could still hear.

"Doc," Henry's tentative voice. "Do... do you want me to try? I... I don't think I'd do better or anything but, do you think it's worth a shot?"

"Yes, absolutely. If there's even a chance she'll respond..." Firefox, she was getting desperate.

0o0o0o0

Henry stood outside Ashley's room and breathed out. He was scared. Not let-the-wolf-out-gonna-die scared, but scared. He gathered himself together and knocked.

Nothing. He knocked again.

"Ash?" She was either asleep or, more likely, ignoring him. "Ash, let me in." He was a little hurt now. He thought they'd trusted each other. "I'm not gonna bite, I've taken my pills." Still nothing. "Oh come on, Ash, that's not fair." With a flash of optimism, he tried the door handle. He hadn't really expected it not to be locked. "Ash," He could hear the nagging tone in his own voice. "D'you want me to come back when I haven't taken my pills and bust the door down?" Empty threat. He had to be really peeing himself before the wolf came out.

"Just go, Henry." Her voice was so quiet he could easily have missed it.

"No." He replied coolly. "I'm not going to."

"I'm not safe Henry. Bug off." She sounded like she was almost crying.

"Ash, virtually no one in this place is safe. There's a werewolf threatening to break down you door, Bigfoot is pottering around somewhere, your Mum is very dangerous when she wants to be and Dracula is currently sitting in your Mum's office with Jack the Ripper. No one here is safe. Ever."

"'S' different."

"How?" He challenged her.

"I'm not in control of this Henry."

"So? It was months before I stopped being scared I'd go wolf and kill somebody. Not really sure I've stopped. You learn to live round it Ash. You can't just shut yourself up like this, it's like you're giving up." No response. "Ash, come on. Since when do you give up at anything? You're a fire-eating, kick-ass girl with an attitude problem when it suits you. You're no more of a monster than I am." He paused. "We'd both better keep an eye out for Van Helsing though. He'd sure as hell chase me, and I think he'd chase an ex-vampire, don't you?" No response. "Oh, c'mon that was funny." He tried the door again. "Ash, let me in." No response. "You're not gonna make me be serious are you?" No response. "Oh, please Ash, that's just cruel." No response. "OK, you are officially evil."

He drew a steadying breath. He'd always really sucked at this. "Look, Ash you grew up in a house where the monsters didn't live under the bed, they lived in the SHU. And they were real. You've had crap thrown at you before. D'you remember that Drexmir venom two years back? I don't see how this is any different. You been messed up by something, now you're back.

Look, Ash do you have any idea how scared I was when this whole wolf thing started? I hid, I ran away. It felt like the end, but I'm still here. You can get through it Ash. Just let me in."

"How many people have you killed Henry?" Gees, she was crying. She was actually crying. He hadn't seen, or heard, her cry in years.

"Ash, I don't give a damn how many Cabal butchers you've done in. Your Dad can probably top your score anyway."

"Not Cabal." She whispered. "Sanctuary staff. How many?" Henry froze. He hadn't thought.

He stood stock still, half leaning against the door and feeling her dead weight on the other side, clawing for the right words. He was useless at this sort of thing, always had been. He had no idea what to say to her. And he wouldn't figure it out either. He walked away, defeated.

0o0o0o0

Footsteps. Footsteps outside the door. Henry or Ashley. Ashley coming back to her. Magnus was half way to the door when it opened.

"Henry." She tried not to let the lead weight falling through her chest show in her voice. He shook his head.

"M'sorry Doc. She wouldn't let me get near her." Magnus shook her head.

"It's not your fault Henry." What was she going to do? Dear God, what was she going to do?

"I think she just can't forgive herself for the... the Sanctuary raids, the people we lost then."

"Is that it?" John looked up from the chessboard, where he was being soundly beaten by Nikola.

"What?" Henry looked round, as if glad not to have to look at her.

"The fact that she's killed people who..." He got to his feet. "quite frankly, probably didn't deserve to die."

"Yeah." Henry responded slowly.

"For Goodness sake. Mr Foss, deactivate the EM shield if you please."

"Why?" Magnus shot at him. What the hell was he thinking?

"Do you honestly think she'll let me in through the door?"

"What are you..."

"To knock some sense into her, or try to."

"John..." She wasn't going to let him hurt Ashley. She'd been through enough.

"I have no intention of harming her Helen."

"We can handle this."

"For God's sake Helen. It's been two days and you've got nowhere." Magnus bit the inside of her mouth. She wasn't going to admit to the truth in that. "She's less willing to let you near her now than she was before Nikola gave her the drug."

"I cannot be blamed for that." Nikola chimed in. Magnus looked down

"Give your pride up Helen and let me help her."

"This is not about pride John."

"At least have the courage to admit that it is. You raised her alone for more than twenty years. Now I am encroaching on what you perceive as your territory."

"She's been through enough without..."

"Has been? I'd say is going through. And it won't stop until she lets go. You haven't made her do that yet. I'm asking you to let me try."

It was Magnus turn to yield. Even as Henry fetched his tablet and set the EM shield to DC, in case Ashley tried anything stupid, a part of her mind screamed that she was exposing Ashley to a killer, a maniac, a monster. Another whispered that, maybe, where her mother could not help Ashley, her father could."

0o0o0o0

The huge abnormal reared up before her. She leapt, clapping her hands to its temples. It fell. It would never rise. They were running again. She felt their bodies, not just her own. They ran together, breathed together, hunted together. Such strength, such unity...

...Ashley moaned, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, as if she could rub out the London Sanctuary, rub out the flashbacks. They'd been attacking her relentlessly since Mum had told her what she was. She was a monster. She belonged in the SHU. Multiple, unprovoked man-killers. That was what went in the SHU. Multiple, unprovoked man-killer. That was her. She'd had no reason to kill, she'd just done it.

She didn't dare leave the room. What if she was near someone when she lost control, when she changed again. They'd die. She wouldn't risk that. She wouldn't inflict them to that, wouldn't throw them to a monster. She was that monster. She had to be contained.

**Reviews please. I'm only getting them from three people at the moment. Thank you melissadams22, Miserylovessarah and DZR.**

**Will Ashley respond to Druitt? Will one attack the other? Which? **


	18. Octavo decimo

**Thank you all so much for the reviews. They give me such a boost.**

**This one's a better length. I'd appreciate any feedback with regard to the first bit of this chapter. Druitt is so hard to write.**

Monster

Fire. Ashley started. Dad. If he could get in that way, she could get out, way out, somewhere she couldn't hurt anyone. She focused.

The fire flashed through her. She hadn't moved. Crap. They'd got the shield back up. On DC. She got to her feet.

"Still enforcing your quarantine?" His voice gave her the creeps.

"Get out." She hissed, jabbing one hand at the bolted door.

"So you can keep yourself locked away in here?" He didn't move.

"Out!" She repeated, more forcefully.

"So you can mope in peace?" Anger, that wild, killer anger reared up in her chest. How could he think that?

"I'm doing this to... If I come out, they're gonna get hurt. There are still people I wanna protect."

"What makes you believe you are protecting them?" He didn't raise his voice. That was what was creepiest. She shouted. He never raised his voice. She hated that in him, in anyone. The anger resurged.

"I'm a bloody killer, that's what!" He laughed. He bloody laughed his cold, creepy laugh. Ashley felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

"Sorry, how many have you killed?" Ashley paused. Two in Moscow, none here, one in Cairo, none in London, none in Mumbai, two in Tokyo, one in Buenos Aires. That girl, mutated to be like her, and 16 Cabal since.

"Twenty three." The number burned her mouth, the number of lives she'd taken, the number that made her a monster. She looked down.

"Pathetic." How could he sound so amused? This wasn't funny. "You really are a novice."

"You..." Her voice shook with rage, and still he ignored it.

"I, well, Tesla may have located a few, but I wielded the knife, have dealt with... well, a score in the past month, probably the same in the first month after you... I can't really use the word `died`, that indicated a certain finality. Then, for the sake of argument, thirty in the six months after they scattered, and that one I suppose, but that was barely pre-meditated. So in the past eight months, that's approximately seventy. Three times as many as you. You'll have to try significantly harder than that to be classified as a monster." That was all she could take. Ashley sprinted at him, hate driving, burning her limbs as she raised a fist to punch.

He swept her arm aside, closing his hand over her elbow. She grimaced, he lifted her arm behind her back. She fought to keep her feet. He pushed her away. She stumbled to a halt and turned back to face him.

"Do you think I want this?" How could he think that? How could he think she wanted to be like him?

"I'll admit, I don't understand your reasoning at this point, but this I do know: You are thinking only of yourself at the moment."

"What?" She could not believe him! "I'm dangerous. I'm a killer. I'm doing this to protect everyone else." He laughed. He bloody laughed.

"Come now, you're no more dangerous than anyone else here, less than Tesla or myself. The... technical boy is a werewolf I believe and, when she has reason to be, your mother can be extremely dangerous. You were a fighter before the Cabal changed you. You are more or less as you were. You are still a fighter. It didn't concern you when we first met. The... thing that made you attack the Sanctuary network is dead, so Tesla says. As untrustworthy as he may be, he is usually right."

"Christ, I'm a killer now. It's different. How do we know I'm stable? Are you listening to a word I say!" She yelled. He shook his head.

"You were born into a selfish era Ashley, I'm afraid to say it's affected you."

"How the..."

"For God's sake Ashley." He raised his voice for the first time, speaking across her. "Have you once thought of how the events of the past year could have affected anyone besides yourself?" He paused, staring accusingly at her. "Do you have any idea what it did to your mother? In all her hundred and fifty...eight years, I don't think she's ever cared for anyone the way she cares for you. I've never seen her as broken as she was after you appeared to die. And since we brought you back a week ago, she hasn't eaten, she only slept for a few hours because her staff were up in arms against her and this is driven by her concern for you. You are doing this to her. It may be time to think of someone other than yourself."

Ashley stood glaring at him for a long moment, feeling the knife of his words sink deeper into her. Then she ran. Out of her room, along the corridor, down the stairs, out across the grounds, throught the gates, onto the street. She needed to get out of there. She neared the river bank. For one heartbeat, she wondered what would happen if she just ran off it. Gees, no. She wouldn't, couldn't do that.

She knew where she was going. She needed to fight, needed to hurt something, but she couldn't be allowed to kill. Silvio could help her with that. Anyway, he needed a heads up. He though she was dead. She needed not to think for a while.

It was sunset. It'd take ages to get to Silvio's place on foot. She wasn't going back for her bike. She backed into a side alley on the far side of the bridge, looking cautiously around. She knew she could do this. She pictured Silvio's warehouse, where she was in relation to it. Then, with a sudden stab of determination, she threw herself into the void.

Fire flashed through her. Silvio's warehouse. She smiled. She heard him moving around somewhere, muttering fragments of rap. She folded her arms, leant back against his van and waited. The fragments of rap drew closer.

"I done six..." He rounded the corner. "Holy shit!" He jumped half a foot in the air and dropped an unmarked wooden crate onto the floor.

"Is there a ghost in here?" Ashley kept her voice cool.

"Ash." He pointed at her, wide eyed.

"Well done, that's my name." She stood upright.

"You... they said you were dead." She shook her head.

"Long story."

"How long?"

"Hour? Hour and a half?"

"OK, OK. Just... gimme a sec." He leant against the wall, staring at her. When he'd recovered a bit, she got to her point.

"Look, Silvio, do you remember that deal you offered me, the one I always refused?"

"Yeah." The businessman began to return. "Yeah. It still stands. D'you have any idea the kind of money we'd make?"

"This once, I'm in."

"You serious?"

"Yeah. I wouldna come all the way down here to scare the crap out of you."

"Hey, I wasn't scared. I was..."

"Yeah right. Does the deal stand or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, thank you so much Ash. I can book you a fight for tomorrow."

"No. Tonight."

"Tonight? Ash, I..."

"Tonight or not at all." Silvio hesitated, tensing a bit.

"I'll see what I can do, OK? No promises."

"It's your loss, given I'll do it for 5% cut." He gawked at her.

"5?"

"5. Bigger than 4, smaller than 6. See what you can do."

He turned away, dialling his cell and lifting it to his ear. Ashley began to pace as he spoke, not listening. If she was lucky, she was about to do something so forbidden, she'd never given it a second thought, fearing her Mum. She didn't know why she was going to do it. But she was.

"Ash." She looked up. "I pulled a few strings. I got you a cage fight. Early one, half ten. Your mum won't suspect." Ashley nodded. She was going to cage fight. She was actually going to do it.

0o0o0o0

Eleven. Ashley strode out into the open air, Silvio beside her, his arm draped round her shoulders, venting praise like a president's speech vents rubbish.

"I mean wow, Ash. Seriously. That guy's seriously good and you like whupped his ass in 10 minutes flat. You're not even scratched."

"Uh-uh." Ashley indicated a line of blood on her cheek. He'd grazed her.

"Seriously? You should see they guy he beat yesterday. You gotta do this again. Everyone bet against you. We made a killing."

"Once, Silvio. That's what I said." Adrenaline was still buzzing through her. She'd needed that. The first twenty minutes had been trading insults, placing bets. The odds had been 25:1 against her. Smasher : Maul. She'd fought under that name. That was what she did now. Mauled. What she had done. She'd fought, but she'd stayed in control. The beast hadn't come out. She'd put him down, broken a rib or two, and stopped. That was what she'd needed. To prove she could stop.

"Hey, Ash." Silvio's vent had reopened. "Didn't see you ride. Can I drop you home?"

"I'll be fine."

"Sure? It's not safe for a girl to be out here on her own at night."

"What did you just see me do?" He grinned.

"Yeah. Seriously, sure you won't do this again?"

"Sure." She echoed, beginning to walk away.

"Bye then."

"Bye." He wouldn't let it drop. Hell no. He'd nag her for years now she'd given in once. Oh well. She'd needed that. In so many ways.

She slid behind a skip, glanced around and was gone.

**I'm not done yet. I swear that when I started, I had no idea this would get so long.**


	19. Nono decimo

**I'm really sorry about Silvio. My mistake. He's dead. **

**Thank you all for sticking with me, and thanks to Ysgol Glanaethwy for being awesome and singing `rhythm of life`, which improves my typing speed no end, and to Only Men Aloud for singing `Delilah`.**

.Monster

"So where is she?" Magnus knew her fear was starting to show in her voice.

"I've told you." John was either unaware of her fear or, more likely, ignoring it. "I don't know. I was talking to her and she ran away."

"And that was an hour ago."

"Yes, it was."

"John, she could be literally anywhere by now."

"She'll come back."

"How do you know?"

"Doc," Henry appeared, Magnus turned to face him, breathing a little hard. "she has." He held out his tablet. Ashley was leaning against the wall next to the gates.

"Let her in." Magnus, shocked and relieved, paced away to meet her daughter. She pushed away the thousand dark happenings that her mind had conjured. Ashley was safe. That was what mattered. Where had she gone though? Where had she fled to, then returned an hour later?

Her feet ate up the ground. No one had followed her. She was grateful. She needed to talk to Ashley, alone.

"Ashley?" She called to the night air as she stepped through the door, into the open.

"M'here Mum." She came into view. Magnus's relief solidified at seeing her with her own eyes.

"Where have you been?" Magnus pulled Ashley into her embrace, and felt her reciprocate. Something had changed, for the better. Ashley shook her head.

"Can we not talk about that?"

"Alright." Magnus conceded, not able to contemplate starting a fight with Ashley yet. She drew away from her. "Sweetheart, you're bleeding." Ashley raised a hand to the vivid, inch-long line on her face.

"So I am."

"Can I ask you how you did it?"

"Not sure." Magnus didn't believe that for a second, but didn't press the point.

"Will you let me clean it?" That was about more than preventing infection. Tending each other's wounds was time to talk, earnestly and openly.

"OK." Magnus proffered her hand. Ashley took it. She couldn't believe this. Three hours, Henry, John and an hour unaccounted for and it was as if the past eight months had never happened. Yes, Ashley was subdued, but she was talking, she was to some extent open, she was accepting. Whatever the last hour had held, aside a scratched face, had helped Ashley more than she had in days.

The infirmary lights flickered into life as Magnus touched the switch. Ashley seated herself on a bed and waited. Magnus bent towards the wound.

"It's not deep enough to need anything really, but I'll clean it to be on the safe side."

"'K" Ashley tilted her head to the light and waited for Magnus to return with the disinfectant. Ashley remained silent as her mother stroked the swabs along the graze, deepest part to shallowest, silently wondering who or what had inflicted it. It was an easy cut to clean. Ashley didn't wince as she applied the stinging disinfectant, but there was a tension in her neck, a tension that, now Magnus thought of it, had been there since Ashley had returned.

"Alright, that's done." Magnus straightened up and turned away to the sink, removing her gloves and containing contaminated material inside them.

"Mum." She turned back, dropping the gloves into the bin, at the sound of Ashley's tentative voice. Ashley had looked down. "Look, I... I just wanna say that... I'm sorry. For... for putting you through this. I needed to let it go and get a life. And for... not coming back."

Sympathy, empathy poured through Magnus. She pulled Ashley into her arms, feeling them both shaking a little. Magnus felt a lump rise in her throat, tears welling in her eyes.

"Sweetheart, there's nothing to forgive. You sought solitude because you'd changed and that scared you. I don't think anyone goes through mutation without feeling fear. Henry did, we all did in the Five. It went on and on for me. We knew I'd changed, but it was two months before we knew how. I was afraid the change would kill me, or make me something like Nikola. As for not coming back, you're less responsible for your actions than I was on the Nauticus, while being affected by the parasite. So far as I, and everyone else here is concerned, the Cabal attacked us, hence the Cabal kept you away, and as for what you were doing in that time, what ye sow, so shall ye reap."

"So you mean," Ashley began through her tears, "if you create a vicious, unkillable monster and send it to kill people, vicious, unkillable monster will come and kill you."

"A predatory, resilient abnormal, Ashley. A predatory, resilient abnormal." Ashley smiled.

"Yeah, that." Magnus drew her away and held her at arms length.

"You were never ordinary Ashley, you've always been special, but human, fully human. I think you've realised you'll never be that again. You have your father's gift." Ashley shook her head.

"I can't use it though, can I? I'll end up like him."

"Actually, probably not."

"What? How does that work? You said that whenever he does his party trick, he damages his brain and that's what makes him psycho." Magnus shook her head.

"I was wrong. There was an incident which, to cut a long story short, proved that at some point in early August, 1888, he became infected with a parasitic energy entity, which produces that behaviour in its host. It's very possibly unique, so your contracting one is very unlikely."

Ashley took a moment before replying,

"Guess it could come in useful then." A smile flashed between them.

"Undoubtedly." There was a moment's silence. Magnus drew a breath before continuing. "Ashley, there's something else we need to discuss."

"What?"

"Follow me." Magnus stood up. As Ashley copied her, she saw her fear. "Sweetheart, you're in no danger whatsoever. You just need to see this."

They walked down a flight of stairs, through six hundred metres of corridor and into the main lab. Ashley's hand had found Magnus's again. Magnus could sense Ashley's tension, didn't dare try to dispel it. Magnus released Ashley and stepped over to the main computer, saying,

"Ashley, are you familiar with the term `telomere`?"

"Ah..." Ashley tipped her head back, thinking. "No."

"They exist within the nucleus of every living cell." Magnus began. "They are essential for cellular mitosis, when a cell divides into two identical cells for growth or repair. A tiny portion of the telomere is used up every time this happens. That's what causes ageing. Now, I don't fully understand why or how this occurs, only that it does. If I compare a telomere to, say, a knitted scarf that's had its ends cut, this might make a bit more sense. They will be constantly unravelling, degenerating. However, if you were to `tie off the ends` so to speak, they cease to decay. That should kill the organism that it happens to. For some reason (this is what I don't understand), it didn't kill me. That's why I don't age.

As you know, no two individuals react to source blood the same way (in theory at least) because it exploits abnormalities in the individuals DNA. You, your father and I have all been mutated by source blood now, and it appears that the gene or genes which caused the source blood to halt the ageing process in him and me were passed from one or both of us to you in their dormant state. The source blood activated them." Ashley was ahead of her.

"Wait a second. Are you telling me that..."

"Yes." Magnus cut her off, as yet not sure how she felt about it. "Sweetheart, you're like me. Physically, you'll be twenty-three for the rest of your life. You'll never age."

"Woah. Hold it." Ashley sank her head into her hands and exhaled slowly. "So I've got Dad's trick, and I'll never look more than twenty-three."

"Yes." Magnus was watching Ashley's every move, waiting for a clearer reaction. All she could see was shock.

"OK, OK. Just... gimme a sec. That's a lot to take in." Ashley exhaled again slowly. When she looked up, Magnus spoke again.

"I don't suppose you need to see the proof?"

"No, Mum. I believe you, it's just..."

"It changes a lot of things doesn't it?"

"Yeah." She paused again. "What the hell do I do now? I'm immortal."

"Two things, Ashley: Firstly, you can still die, illness, injury, you're not immune to harm. Never forget that. As for what to do, I for one want to see you back here, but it's up to you. It's not as if you're pressed for time."

"You think I can come back? After everything I did?"

"That was done to you, Ashley. And I'd be something of a hypocrite if I said no, wouldn't I?" Ashley smiled. Sanctuary for all.

"I just gotta face this, haven't I?"

"Not alone." Magnus got up and embraced her again. "We're in this together sweetheart. You will never have to deal with this on your own. I will always be here for you, as long as I live. I will help and support you in any way I can, whatever you decide to do." Ashley's voice was quiet, cautious still.

"Thanks Mum."

**The end is nigh, as if you couldn't tell. I've got an epilogue to do, then I'll stop making you all wait.**


	20. Epilogue

**I can't believe it. It's over. Monster is complete. If anyone wants to know what Magnus's subconscious gesture means, and doesn't, you may ask. **

**OK, thanks: to my Mum for being my beta and giving birth to me. To the new wordsmith for being a pain. To Amanda Tapping, Damian Kindler and Martin Wood for giving us all something to write about. To Christopher Heyerdall for giving us such a riddle of a character. To my Grandmother for being an inspiration. Finally, to God, for creating the world and everything in it.**

Monster

Epilogue

Will leaned against the edge of Magnus's desk. It had been an hour and a quarter since Ashley had come back. Druitt and Tesla were playing chess again. It looked like Druitt was losing. His king and bishop weren't holding against Tesla's king and castle. It didn't change his demeanour though. He and Tesla were both so determinedly laid back, dominant. The tension between them was tangible. They were fascinating to watch. They were competing for status and, on some level, for Magnus.

Tesla swore in Serbian. Druitt was sliding his bishop over to his castle and removing the latter.

"Draw." He stated simply. The two men glared at eachother.

Footsteps. All three looked up, then stood up as Magnus entered the room.

"Ashley?" Will asked before anyone else could. Downed eyes. Nervous, or more likely pensive, remembering. She halted by the dark window and turned to face him.

"She's fine. It's a lot to take in, but she'll get there."

"So I was right on both counts?" Tesla chimed in.

"You were." That same tone she'd used with the words `she does` when he'd gone and asked about Ashley on the Nautilus that time.

"That being the case," Druitt spoke for the first time. "I don't believe either of us are wanted or needed here any longer. I will be on my way." He and Magnus held each other's gaze for a long moment, their eyes a mêlée of tangled emotions that Will wouldn't have been able to name a tenth of in the time they looked at each other. Then Druitt turned and walked away. One of Magnus hands flew to her mouth momentarily. She probably wasn't even aware she'd done it.

"Helen, before I leave," Tesla began, "there's the matter of payment."

"What do you request?" Cold, closed down, eyes and voice. Tesla inhaled tentatively before replying.

"Blood."

"Nikola! You swore never to feed on humans?" Anger, disgust layered her voice, her face.

"No," He raised placating hands. "Not to drink, Helen. DNA."

"Whose?" Short, aggressive. "And what for?"

"OK, Helen just..." Tesla's placating gestures, as much as his voice, gave him the impression of one edging around an intimidating superior. Magnus. "just hear me out. Do you have any idea how many billions have been invested over the centuries into slowing the ageing process? Helen, by some chance, you and Ashley hold the keys that mankind has been seeking for millennia. In the right hands, do you have any idea what that's worth? What that could do?"

"And yours are the right hands?"

"I saved your daughter Helen, isn't that worth anything?" Magnus gazed hard at him for a full minute, her mistrust and her gratitude battling. Will knew that having Ashley back meant more to Magnus than anything else, but Tesla? That incident with the rehab, and Rome before that. There was no way he could be trusted.

"How do I know what you'll use the blood for?" She was playing for time.

"You have my word Helen. I will only use it to investigate your unique ability." Magnus made a quiet noise of disbelief in her throat.

"As if either of us think that means anything."

"I did save her Helen." Tesla knew that was his trump card. Magnus froze momentarily, again submerged in her mental battle.

"You can take one vial of my blood," Magnus replied decisively, "but you're not taking one drop of Ashley's." Tesla knew better than to try to haggle; he knew she had the power in just about every respect. He followed her meekly out of the room. Superior and inferior. Textbook example, once you forgot that the superior was 158 and the inferior was a vampire.

0o0o0o0

Seven AM. She hadn't done too badly. Everyone else would be starting the morning rounds. Ashley would do hers. Kate lifted her case, containing all her possessions, including about half her pay, but not the promised tusk, from her bed and headed for the door Where would she go? Back where she came from. The street, back to freelance work. Yeah, this place had started to feel like home, but she'd always known she was a temp.

She twisted the door handle and pulled. Magnus. Henry. Will. The Big Guy. Ashley, no claws, blue eyes. Standing in front of her, blocking her way.

"Where do you think you're going?" Magnus asked at once. Kate faltered for a second, then.

"I... I figured that... Y'know, I was always a temp, so..."

"Yeah, well," Henry grinned. "the Big Guy's only here 'till his bullet wounds heal up and he got those in, what? 53?"

"51." The Big Guy corrected.

"Like it or not," Magnus continued, "you're one of us now."

"Druitt and Tesla left last night," Will said, "so we're back to normal."

"Define `normal`." Ashley challenged.

"Having a lot of abnormals who want breakfast." Will must have planned that line. That was way too quick to be spontaneous.

"Do I just go back and do my round?" Ashley put in.

"You can take the morning off." Magnus replied. "You've had a hell of a week, Kate does your round at the moment. We'll sort out necessary adjustments once we've got everyone and everything fed."

"OK." Ashley didn't look at Magnus, she looked at Kate, and Kate had been freelance too long to mistake the hostility there. Ashley turned and walked away, determinedly casual. Too determinedly.

Kate dumped her bag and set off on her round. She and Ashley would sort things out eventually. For now, she had work to do.

**There will be no sequel as such for some time. If anyone wants to do one for me, you can ask, but I want to beta. That's me being possessive.**

**That's all folks. Thank you so much for reading for months, and goodbye.**


End file.
